


Diplomatic Excursions and Other Ways to Die

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bad Puns, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Humor, M/M, Romance, Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 19:44:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 53,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/714376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Conceptually, attending Emperor Ling's coronation celebration is simple enough. In practice, it involves far too much trekking, yearning, bleeding, burning, hoping, running, and dodging of diplomatic catastrophes for Roy's tastes.</p><p>[Major <b>spoilers</b> for Brotherhood.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. XING

**Author's Note:**

> ~~JESUS TAKE THE WHEEL~~
> 
> This is my submission for [FMA Big Bang 2013](http://fmabigbang.livejournal.com/), and… well. I knew when I started that it was going to be a monster, but I didn't expect _this_. XD
> 
> Heaps of gratitude go first and foremost to [Bob Fish](http://archiveofourown.org/users/bob_fish/pseuds/bob_fish), who changed the way I think about the boys with all of her amazing fic and some amazing discussions we had; who then proceeded to doom me by producing the stunning art that spawned this fic; who _then_ gave it an absolutely invaluable beta read; and who _THEN_ drew another illustration for it. I am so totally not worthy. ♥♥♥
> 
> And then Eltea gamma-read it and did the HTML for me, because I am goddamn _spoiled_ , that's why. ;_______;
> 
> So: any and all remaining issues (and they are legion) are entirely due to the fact that I am frazzled, IRL!swamped, and just generally a crappy writer. :D This story had some very promising ambitions, a few of which it lived up to, many of which it fell short of.
> 
> Two more things to note:
> 
> 1\. It's in two parts because it undergoes a genre shift the likes of which no one has ever been dumb enough to attempt until _I_ came along. Please forgive the magnitude of the first section – it seemed more logical to separate the pieces into giant chapters than to divide the thing into two separate fics and make this a series-sort-of-but-not-really. O__o
> 
> 2\. I forgot to spell this out in the fic that Hoho made the trade for Al's body, which means Ed still has his alchemy and the automail arm. (And his incredibly foul mouth, but that's a given!)
> 
> PLEASE ENJOY. ♥♥♥

When they’ve been dragged up to the highest room and hurled on the floor, and the door has been slammed, and they’ve both levered themselves awkwardly up to sit despite the impressive iron stocks around their wrists, Ed scoots backwards unabashedly until his spine hits Roy’s and says, “This is your fault.”

Roy can feel Ed’s heartbeat through both of their skins, both of their muscles; he can feel the rhythm settling into his bones.  “And how, exactly, have you arrived at that fine and well-researched concl—”

“Because _I_ wanted to stay with Al and Captain Hawkeye and Ling’s guy, but _no_ , you said we’d get there faster if we just popped off and set out by ourselves—”

Roy does not say _I have not had a moment alone with you since before we stepped onto the first train, and parts of me I did not know could dry out are parched and cracking_.

He does not say _I very much needed to usher you up hills and ladders ahead of me so that I could gaze longingly at your beautiful ass without commentary._

He does not say _The way ‘Ling’s guy’ looks at you makes my stomach acid boil, and the fumes were asphyxiating me._

He clears his throat.  “Surely you were every bit as weary as I was of the navigational incompetence.”

It’s a boring lie, but Ed is too wholly guileless with those he trusts to anticipate an ulterior motive.  It also doesn’t hurt that he’s barely even listening.

“—so when we get back, I’m telling Al to kick _your_ ass for this.”

Roy’s jaw is aching with what is going to be a terribly unsightly new bruise, and his bottom lip is split towards the right side.  He smiles anyway, simply because Edward Elric lacks the capacity for doubt.

“When we get back,” he says, “that sounds fair.”

 _If_ they get back, Ed will go on looking about himself wide-eyed and smiling and fascinated and _free_ , and Roy will wonder just how long he has left.  Someday soon Ed is going to realize that there’s nothing tethering him in the kennel anymore, and when that day comes, he will be over the fence and gone.  It’s funny, in an awful kind of way, that the world is not big enough to hold the smallest miracle Roy has ever touched.

…it’s the dehydration.  Surely it’s the dehydration.  Intoxication makes him bitter, and dehydration makes him melodramatic.

Damn his weak, sad little soul.  He tilts his head back a fraction—not enough to brush Ed’s; that might just set him off and start him babbling out everything that’s swirling in his chest.

But then he squints.  And then he makes out the mark scrawled on the ceiling.

“Wait,” he says.

“Nah,” Ed says.  “I was just thinking of jumping up and throwing myself out the window, thanks.”

“This building,” Roy says, straining to look harder, but he must be right, “the people we’re dealing with—this is the Hua Wei.”

Silence.  For a moment Roy is almost stupid enough to try to crane his neck around to see Ed’s face.

“The Hua Wei,” he says again.  “They’re a fringe group.  Different religion, speak a different dialect, don’t believe in empire as a method of government.”

“Huh,” Ed says.  “How do you know all that stuff?”

“Because when I heard we were going to Xing,” Roy says, “I _researched_.  Honestly, with all of the reading you do, it is incomprehensible to me that there’s anything you _don’t_ kn—”

“You can’t research a country,” Ed says.  “Not in any way that matters—you can’t find out what people are like from a book, and the politics are always changing, and you never know what the air’s like until you’re breathing it.  Whereas _alkahestry_ —that shit I researched.  That’s just fact.  And hang on, how do you even know?”

Roy has to raise both hands and the stocks between them in order to point.  “It’s written up there.”

“Hang _on_ ,” Ed says.  “You can read fucking Xingese?”

“A bit,” Roy says, which is understating matters somewhat.  “The written characters are more or less consistent throughout the country, but the dialects vary broadly.  My mother spoke one of the northern variants, but I learned imperial Xingese.”

“First of all,” Ed says, “what the fuck?”

“I’m in a position of diplomatic power, Fullmetal; it was only logical to brush up once Xingese royalty started pouring into Central Ci—”

“Second of all,” Ed says, “what the _fuck_?  You mean you’ve been making Ling and everybody talk to you in Amestrian this whole time without them knowing you can understand what they say to each other?”

Roy opens his mouth and then closes it.  There is a pause.

“You _bastard_ ,” Ed says—but if Roy’s not mistaken, there’s a tone of admiration to it.

“I prefer the term ‘strategist’,” Roy says.  “All right, let’s… see…”

“See what?”

“You are _insufferable_ when you’re bored.”

“Al switches between ‘intolerable’, ‘infuriating’, and ‘demonic’, but I guess ‘insufferable’ works too.”

Roy deems that rising to that is unwise and, with a great deal of difficulty and some highly undignified grunting and gritting of teeth, plants one of his fettered hands on the dusty floor and levers himself up to his knees.  The balance is all wrong, and it’s hard to concentrate through the throbbing in his head, but he tries to put a mental wall between himself and the myriad distractions as he bends and starts dragging the first two fingers of his right hand through the dust.

Ed shifts, and Roy can feel the weight of his gaze.  “What are you doing?  That’s not an array.  And swords made of dust really suck; I’ve tried that.”

“It’s the pictogram for ‘peace’,” Roy says.  “Although technically I believe it’s more accurately translated as ‘non-hostility’—‘truce’, I suppose.  And this…”  He tries to keep his lines sharp and graceful, which is a bit of a challenge when it feels like he’s scraping the skin off of his fingertips, and his instinct is to jerk his hand away.  “…means ‘talk’—the noun, like ‘conversation’.  Like ‘parley’.”

Ed is quiet for a moment.  Roy doesn’t quite dare to glance back.  “You really think they’re gonna buy that?”

“It can’t hurt to try,” Roy says—which of course is a lie, but a lie that’s pleasant and useful.

“Okay,” Ed says as Roy sits back, attempting to figure out how to wipe his fingers on his trouser leg around the obstructive stocks.  “Now what?”

“Now we wait.”

“Are your plans always this shitty?”

“Usually.”

 

* * *

 

He wishes he could say it started here in Xing.  He wishes he could say it started at the train station, moments before their departure, when Ed turned and bared his face to the first swell of dawn above the skyline, and the feeble light struck sparks in his hair, and Roy’s stomach dropped out.  He wishes he could say it started at Ed’s birthday party, when the newly-minted seventeen-year-old watched Roy ostentatiously lighting candles sans array, rolled his eyes, huffed a sigh, and then favored his commander with one glimpse of a soft and almost affectionate smile.

But it started on the Promised Day.  It started when Roy burst into the room where he’d incinerated the homunculus Lust—heart racing, thoughts roiling, adrenaline electric in his veins—and found it full of all-new monsters; with Riza at his heels and his fingers poised, he felt adequate to the task, at least.  It started when the grotesque figures shifted aside, and Ed spun to face the door, every line of his body _burning_ with the fight.  It started when Ed’s eyes found Roy’s, and the viciousness melted instantaneously into relief and a fragment of something like delight, and a part of Roy whispered, _That.  That is what I want_.

There wasn’t time to contemplate it before the deluge, but the words had crystallized, and they couldn’t be broken apart.

After the absolute consumption of the rage when Envy fell into his grasp—Envy, the _worm_ that had murdered the best man Roy had ever met; the sharp-toothed _slug_ that had pried away the cleanest and kindest and safest thing in Roy’s life and _smiled_ dashing it to the ground—there was no room for anything but the terror for Riza, and then there was the sudden and impenetrable darkness.  And then there was the end of it, of all of it—skittering and stumbling down along a trajectory he couldn’t see or slow or influence but for hurling flame into the dark.  And then there was the promise of light, of distinction, of the power of observation restored, never again to be taken for granted.

And _then_ there was time to wonder just how long it had been since Fullmetal had been a child.

It was like waking from a nightmare—or a drunken blackout, but Roy was going to stick with the nobler simile for as long as he could get away with it—when the bandages fell away, and their absence made a difference.  The room came into focus; the ambient whiteness almost blinded him again; Riza was at his elbow, grinning, and had she always been _that_ beautiful?

It was bizarre and kind of unsettling to need to have events that he had _participated_ in described to him, but nothing seemed terribly important now, weighed against how staggeringly fortunate they’d been.  There had been casualties, yes, but no cataclysm.  Whatever happened from here, Roy would rest in the knowledge that he was quite possibly the luckiest man alive.

When Fullmetal arrived—dragging his feet, reluctant to be anywhere but Alphonse’s bedside—Roy ordered him to take a full month’s leave.  There were a number of excellent reasons that the Fullmetal Alchemist should take a break: someone would need to care for Alphonse constantly; until Miss Rockbell could build a new arm from scratch and stop beating the boy with a wrench for his recklessness, he was oh-so-literally short-handed anyway; he’d just lost his father to the rule of exchange that governed every aspect of his life.

It was an entirely logical decision.  And Roy wouldn’t have to look at him with new eyes and fight the urge to marvel.

Two weeks later, Ed stormed into Roy’s office with a shining replacement arm and slammed his watch down on Roy’s desk.

It seemed terribly typical for him to be sweeping out of the military the same way he burst in—eyes blazing, shoulders squared, with the braid slung over his shoulder.

And Roy thought, _I will write you sardonic letters; I will demand that you come out for drinks when ‘the team’ misses your vitality; I will stop myself just before I start standing under your bedroom window to watch you comb out your hair_ and was terrified by his conviction.

“To hell with your leave,” Ed said.  “Give me something to do.”

Roy choked on ‘While I can’t in good conscience say that your service was exemplary, it was nonetheless astonishingly excellent in a unique and more or less commendable way’.  “Y—what?”

Ed heaved a histrionic sigh.  “Al’s already trained his cat to bring him the newspaper—don’t ask me how—and I’ve read every book in the house at least twice, and Al throws shit at me when I pace around the living room, and the only other people I know are all here, and I’m going _insane_.  So give me something.  I don’t even care what.”

Roy knew it was a stopgap measure at best—a very small dam against a very large river—but he set Major Elric mostly to researching.  If Roy kept him occupied in the libraries and doing odd jobs around the city, Ed was close to his brother, and he was theoretically staying out of trouble.  One day the dam would crumble, but perhaps…perhaps by then Roy would have dug a canal.  Perhaps Roy would have directed the sheer power of that current away from himself, and perhaps he would not drown.

Thus it was that Roy Mustang treaded water for a year.  For a year, Ed investigated minor crimes in the city and threatened small-time miscreants with increasingly outlandish punishments; for a year, Ed was unsettlingly obedient and quietly content; for a year, Ed changed out the picture of Alphonse on his desk (which he used as a chair and a filing cabinet) every time his restored brother gained a few more pounds.  For a year, Roy handed him distractions and did not touch him; for a year, Roy let him disdain uniforms not because the waistcoat became him so breathtakingly but because it ‘couldn’t hurt to have a plainclothes major’; for a year, Roy smiled faintly when Edward Elric’s back was turned.  For a year, he kept both of them safe from each other and from themselves, and Ed was none the wiser.

And then came the letter on fine parchment that reeked of sandalwood.

 

* * *

 

“What are they saying?” Ed mutters.

“I can’t understand them,” Roy says.  He’s trying to focus on the intonations and expressions instead of on the warmth of Ed’s left arm brushing his right.  “Regional dialects aren’t like accents, where the pronunciation only changes marginally; they’re drastically different.”

“Could you _be_ any more useless?” Ed asks.

“I suppose if I gave it my best effort and truly believed in myse—”

“Oh, shut _up_.”

Before they can get any more high-quality bickering in, the discussion above them stops.  The men in the coarse robes set their dark eyes on Roy, who holds his breath and straightens his spine and tries to project calm rationality without looking weak.

He earns a sharp knee to the face for his trouble.

Reading up, Roy thought the Hua Wei were enthralling.  He is currently revising his opinion of them.

At least they know how to make an exit, though; the robes swish and snap and churn up the dust.

Ed scoots over and sets his mismatched hands against Roy’s chest to steady him—as much as the stocks allow—when Roy sits up and sways a bit.  Ed leans in _too_ close to examine Roy’s petulantly-bleeding nose, and Roy narrowly manages not to gasp and choke and spray blood all over the boy’s distressingly arresting face.

“It’s not broken,” Ed says.  “Which is a good thing; I don’t think you could stand to get much uglier.”

“I beg your _pardon_ ,” Roy says.

Ed grins.  This close, pinioned, with the cool fingers and the warm ones pressing into his chest, Roy almost has to look away.  “Good, I don’t think there’s any head trauma.  _Damn_ , that was a shitty plan.”

“Thank you for the revelatory wisdom of your hindsight.”  Roy tries to raise his own hands to negotiate wiping his nose around the stocks, and there is a moment of frozen awkwardness before Ed withdraws.  Then Roy is smearing blood all over his face and hands, and this is familiar territory.  “Your turn to generate unspeakable brilliance, then.”

“I’m good for that,” Ed says.

“I’m aware,” Roy says.

Ed looks at Roy’s filthy hands, and then at his slightly-less-filthy ones.  He flexes his fingers.  And then the corners of his lips curl.  “I think I have an idea.”

Roy is not sure he likes the sound of that.

 

* * *

 

“Just when you think a guy can’t get any more arrogant,” Ed said from his sprawl on the couch with his hands behind his head, “he gets to be emperor of a giant country, and you’re royally fucked.”

“Language,” Roy said disinterestedly, passing a signed report back to Riza.

“Oh, _do_ forgive me, sir.  He gets to be emperor, and you are magisterially fornicated with.”

“Don’t be crude, Brother,” Alphonse said, and Roy could have kissed him.  With Ed in obliteration range, he would not have survived the endeavor, but the intention stood.

“I don’t see why we have to go,” Ed said, scrubbing at his eyes with his flesh hand.  “Al’s still not really up for that kind of traveling, and you’re within spitting distance of your promotion, and it’s not like we’re Xingese citizens, so what the hell do we care about Ling’s big, fancy, I’m-the-emperor-now-ha-ha-you-peons party?”

Roy folded his hands and waited until Ed glanced over at him.  “It’s the diplomatic opportunity of a lifetime, Fullmetal.”

“If these are the kinds of opportunities you live for,” Ed said, “your life must suck.”

“ _Brother_ ,” Al said, and the two syllables conveyed encyclopedias of exasperation.

“Think about it,” Roy said.  It was the only challenge Ed _never_ turned down.  “He has an informal allegiance with a ranking member of the Amestrian military—that is, you—and is extending that connection to an individual who may very well _dictate_ foreign policy within a matter of years—that is, me.”

“At which point you get your five hundred cens back,” Ed said.  “So why don’t _you_ go to his stupid party?  I’ll stay here and _not_ bust my ass catching trains and sweating out my own weight in the desert.”

“You’re the liaison,” Roy said.  “You are my ticket to an alliance that none of my competitors will ever be able to touch.  Besides, isn’t he your _friend_?”

“I’m sick of being your ticket,” Ed muttered.  “And I’m a better friend when I’m long-distance, not that it’s any of your damn business.  And do you even _know_ how far Xing is?  And how _different_ it is?  We can’t just wander over and say ‘hi’ and start redeeming imperial approval, you know.”

“I know,” Roy said—mildly, despite how startling it always was when Ed’s maturity stabbed straight through his compulsive rejection of authority.  “I did actually think this through.  It’s a lot of time for the captain and myself to be away, but I believe that the benefits of becoming an _individual_ to the primary power in Xing—not just a title and a name—will be more than worth the effort.”

“Worth it for _you_ , maybe,” Ed said.  “Are you looking at the larger resource exchange here?”

“Yes.”

Ed’s frown deepened into a scowl.  “Are you looking at what a huge pain in my ass this is gonna be?”

Roy smiled thinly.  “And here I thought you would be grateful for a reprieve from all of the menial labor.”

“You talk like this is a vacation,” Ed said.  “This is _not_ going to be a vacation.”

“But it’s a holiday in Xing,” Roy said.

Even Riza sighed at that wordplay.

 

* * *

 

“This is a little experimental,” Ed says.  “And by that I mean that no one’s ever done it, and a million things could go wrong, and there’s a very minor possibility that we could die.”

“Wonderful,” Roy says.

“ _However_ ,” Ed says, “if we’re gonna get out of here, we should try it before you lose any more blood and end up _totally_ useless, and I’m pretty sure I’ve figured it out in theory.”

“You always know exactly how to reassure my troubled heart,” Roy says.

“Just trust me,” Ed says.  “I _am_ a genius.”

“I’m aware of that.”  Roy shifts forward and, after a bit of ungainly maneuvering, manages to sit with his legs crossed, facing the boy who may momentarily lead him to his doom.  “If you weren’t, I’m fairly sure we’d both be dead by now.”

Ed attempts—unsuccessfully—to suppress a grin.  “You better dial back the optimism, General, or I’m gonna have to start calling you a ‘Roy of sunshine’.”

“You wouldn’t,” Roy says.

“I would,” Ed says.

“Then I suppose I’ll have to trust you,” Roy says.

Ed’s grin widens.  He hefts the stocks around his wrists, raises his arms, and opens both his hands.

Roy takes a deep breath, sets his jaw, and presses his filthy palms to Ed’s.

He had anticipated something—a rush of energy, a tingle of power.

It isn’t a tingle.  It’s a tidal wave.

He jerks away so violently that he loses his balance and tumbles backwards onto the unforgiving floor.  He can just barely brace himself on his elbows with the stocks obstructing his movement, so it’s from an embarrassed sprawl that he stares up at Ed in amazement and a little bit of fear.

“All the time,” he says.  “You keep that in you _all the time_.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Ed says a little too quickly, his eyes a little too sharp.  “Part of it—I mean, probably not a whole half, because you’re so useless—but a lot of it’s yours.  That’s how it works.  Or that’s how I theorized it’d work.”

“I’ve only dabbled in hands-free alchemy,” Roy says.  “I’ve practiced my array extensively, and after some thought I fixed the wobbling leg of my desk in the office.  I can’t control that kind of power, Ed.”

“You don’t _have_ to,” Ed says, working his way rapidly from startlement to a scowl to a glower.  “I’ll do it, and I’ll work out the array—you just sit still and think about the components of iron and let me run it through you.  It’s just closing the circuit, okay?  And then the lightbulb goes on.  Simple.”

“Nothing is ever simple with you,” Roy says.

“Bullshit,” Ed says.  “I’m easy.”

Roy pauses.

Ed blinks.

“Oh, fuck _you_ ,” he says.  “Sit up and stop being such a goddamn _violet_ , and I’ll get us _out_ of here.”

“Such a _what_?” Roy asks, struggling to follow the part of those instructions that made a lick of sense.  If nothing else, the combination of malnourishment and endless shackled sit-ups will probably help to make up for all of the addictively delicious mooncakes he snuck during the ceremonies.

“Violet,” Ed is saying.  “It’s—a thing we used to say at home.  Y’know, like ‘shrinking violet’.  Because they’re so flimsy and shit.  Some asshole said it to Al at school once, and I punched him and got suspended.  Point is, you’re _being_ one.  C’mon, we don’t have all day.”

“I think violets are lovely,” Roy says as he works his way upright at last, steels himself, and offers his hands.

“I’ll bet you do,” Ed says, and claps his hands to Roy’s.

The swell of pure and absolute _potential_ almost bowls him over again, but this time he leans into it instead of away.  Ed’s eyes light, and their joined hands spark, and every ounce of Roy’s blood that didn’t dribble out his nose starts to surge and _sing_.  He tries—he _tries_ —to think of nothing but pale light and clear lines and iron, iron, iron; molecules of metal that oxygenate red—

It’s difficult to think of anything but how breathtaking Ed is in his element.

But that makes it easier, somehow, to feed the power back to him, to circulate it, to guide the raging current from Ed’s warm hand through the center of his own chest and back out into the cold-elegant automail, because Roy will give him _everything_ if he’ll just keep looking like _that_ —

Ed’s eyes gleam, and he grins wildly—heedless, flushed—and gasps out, “Oh, _hell_ , yes,” and then—

—peels his palms away from Roy’s and flattens them on the front of the stocks.

The light is briefly blinding, and then chunks of iron are raining into Roy’s lap.

A rather sizable one hits him in a very unfortunate place.

Roy cringes despite the way it makes his split lip sting—and then he cringes _because_ it makes the split lip sting; focusing on that pain is so, _so_ much better than the alternative.

“You could have broken the lock,” he grits out.

Ed blinks.  “Oh.  Huh.  Guess so.”  He watches blankly as Roy curls up around himself a little and then begins feebly massaging at his wrists.  “Sorry.”

“Never mind,” Roy manages.  “It’s that sort of a day.”  He tries to meet Ed’s gaze and finds it hazy.  “Are you… all right?”

Ed looks down at his shackled hands.  “Yeah.  I just… I didn’t think it’d feel like that.”

Roy hesitates.  “Like what?”

“Good,” Ed says.  “Really, _really_ … good.”  He swallows.  Several wisps of hair have escaped from his ponytail to flirt with his throat.  “It’s just… I mean, I can’t help thinking, sometimes, that if I just had enough power, I could fix everything.  I could make everything great, make it the way I wanted it, set everything right.  And then I realize that’s probably what the homunculus thought he was doing, at the start.”

“If you can recognize the danger of power,” Roy says, “you’re already safe from your ambitions.”

Ed turns a wry gaze on him.  “You’re one to talk.  How long ’til the Royvolution?”

Roy lets the smirk unfurl slowly.  “Don’t get short with me—or can’t you help it?”

Ed growls in the back of his throat, and Roy forgets the pain for a moment as his groin throbs for a different reason.

Before Roy can despair too much, Ed shoves his own bound, mismatched hands forward.  “Equivalent goddamn exchange, Mustang; let me out.”

“So demanding,” Roy says.  He presses his palms together, focuses intently on decomposition, leans forward, and touches the lock on Ed’s stocks.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Ed says, apparently just in general, as he throws them open, tosses them aside, and starts kneading at his left wrist with his metal fingers.  “Ow.  Damn it.”

That can’t be helping matters; Roy reaches for his arm.  “Let me—”

“C’mon,” Ed says, leaping to his feet.  Some days Roy swears the boy is made of elastic and sheer pigheadedness.  Ed crosses to one of the windows, circling his left wrist.  “How high up are w… aw, shit.  I officially hate these guys.”

“Officially?” Roy says, clambering to his feet with a great deal less gusto.  “I’ll make sure to have it noted in your file.”

“Shut up,” Ed says, leaning out.  The wind catches his hair; Roy’s stomach somersaults less-than-gracefully.  “So… how do you feel about rappelling without a harness?”

Roy starts collecting the pieces of the stocks so that they can be reconstructed into cord.  “I imagine you probably don’t care how I feel about it as long as I hush up and do it.”

Ed flashes him a terrible, terrible grin.

 

* * *

 

By the third day of caravanning through the desert, Roy had a dehydration headache, several saddle sores, and a fierce desire to kill most of his companions.

“Hey, Colonel—I mean, _Brigadier General_ —International Relations,” Ed said.  “I expect you to put a fucking railroad here the second we get back.”

“Do I look like I’m enjoying this?” Roy asked.

Ed assessed him, eyes bright in the shadow of his cloak.  Roy had to admit that they were obscenely lucky the previous emperor had elected to die in the dead of winter; the nights were indescribably cold, but at least no one had passed out from heatstroke.  They’d all nonetheless been advised to keep their hoods up against the vicious combination of wind and sand and sun.

“You always enjoy other people’s pain,” Ed decided.

Alphonse stretched his slender arms above his head.  “I’m sorry, Brigadier General; Brother’s acting childish because he didn’t sleep well last night.”

“It’s fine,” Roy said, which was not true and never had been and likely never would be.  Rationally, he knew that Ed meant those sorts of jibes in jest, but it was still difficult to hear himself accused of sadism by the one person who honestly seemed to believe that he wasn’t monstrous.

“Sir,” Riza said in as much of an undertone as equine travel allowed, “think of the hot bath waiting for you when we arrive.”

Roy made a genuine effort to do so—except that he was still thinking about Ed, and the two thoughts converged, and then he was thinking of _Ed_ in a hot bath, lounging against the side, surrounded by pearly bubbles and wreathed in steam, hair soaked and wet skin gleaming, setting a smoldering gaze on Roy and purring, _If you don’t hurry up, it’ll be cold before we’re done_.

As Roy discovered, there were few things in the world less enjoyable than trying to combat an erection while riding a horse.

 

* * *

 

Whether or not Ed cares, Roy feels that rappelling without a harness is fucking terrifying.

“ _Man up_!” Ed shouts from the ground, which looks very, very, very distant and very, very, very hard.

Roy needs to focus on the facts.  It is a fact that this transmutation-marked cord supported the weight of Ed including automail and saw him safely down.  It is a fact that the wind is buffeting Roy’s body, but not so vigorously that he’s losing his grip.  It is a fact that, despite the multiple blows to the head and the blood loss, he has not yet felt his consciousness skittering away from him, ergo the medical likelihood is that he won’t black out with fifty feet of open air remaining.

It is a fact that he can do this.  It is a fact that he really ought to, in a hurry, if he wants to get out of this godforsaken place alive.  It is a fact that Ed is waiting for him at the bottom.

Clearly, then, this is one of those occasions that calls on his deepest reserves of willpower.  That’s all it is: one more test of will; one more bauble on the endless chain; one more footprint to press into the muddied ground; one more rung on the ladder he’s clung to since he was barely old enough to understand his own insignificance.  And he’s going to get through it one gesture at a time—hand over hand over sore and dirt-and-blood-streaked hand.

He needs to think of anything but the gaping openness below him, yawning hungrily, _waiting_ for him—waiting for the littlest loss of traction, the slightest slip.  He ought to give Ed some credit; this rope is really rather elegant for something alchemically thrown together from bits and pieces of iron.  Very thin, very even, very strong.  So strong.  Strong enough to hold him; all he has to do is hold _on_.

All he has to do is hold on, bracing the soles of his feet against the crunching, pockmarked stones of the tower wall.  All he has to do is dig his toes into the crumbling mortar and release one hand and then clasp it around the rope a little lower; and then again; and then again.  Two inches at a time; that’s all it takes.  Hand over hand over hand over hand.

Damn it, he’s so exhausted.  He knows it’s only going to hit him harder when—if, if, if—they dart off to safety; the adrenaline is still shimmering through his whole body, and he’s giddy with it, pulsating, vibrant, bright.  If he falls, he dies; isn’t that delightfully simple?  Life hasn’t been this black and white for years.  If he falls, he splatters to pulp at Ed’s feet—and hasn’t the poor young man been through enough?  Roy had better not fall.  There’s so much left to do.  He’d better keep holding tight, one hand cramping around the cold metal rope, and then the other, and then the first again.  He’d better keep forcing his fingers to curl until they ache.  He’d better keep letting the friction scald his palms every time he scrabbles to nudge his toes into a niche in the wall.  He’d better keep living, whatever it takes.

It’s funny how alike he and Ed are when it comes to this strange inner tempest of self-loathing and determination and guilt.  It’s funny how they’ve both deliberately set their standards for atonement far out of their reach, and the impossibility is the very thing that drives them.  It’s funny how they fight like a pair of feral cats, when at the core they see perfectly eye-to-eye.

Figuratively, anyway; literally, Ed has to look up.

Perhaps… that’s the thing.  Perhaps they’re staring each other in the face, and that’s why they step on each other’s toes.

Roy could do with a new set of toes in any case; he’s abusing the current model.  His hands have started to shake when they’re not clasped around the cable, and his shoulders are burning, and the race of his blood highlights every last little wound he’s collected in the past two days; his jaw and his lip and his biceps and his sinuses and his spine and his feet all trill and pound to the rhythm of his heartbeat.

He can’t look down; his whole skull will swing sideways, and he’ll panic.  He looks at the wall, and then he looks outward, to the left.  He’s lower than the treetops now.  He might even survive if he fell from this distance, depending on how he landed.  He’s almost there.

Everything throbs.  Surely he’s not too old for this?

“ _Don’t be such a violet_!” Ed is shouting, which is stupid; they can’t afford to alert the Hua Wei.  Then again, maybe Ed’s already sealed all of the doors to the tower shut with alchemy and trapped the enemy inside.  It’s what Roy would do, were he young and talented and brilliant and astonishingly gorgeous in the sunlight.  Astonishingly gorgeous in any light.  Astonishingly gorgeous all the time.

Roy closes his eyes and presses his forehead to the jagged contours of the stone.  He takes a deep breath, possibly inhaling asbestos that will mold in his lungs and kill him someday.  Then he opens his eyes, which are a bit clearer for the reprieve, and keeps going—hand over hand over hand.

 

* * *

 

A single man dressed in pale yellow met them just before Roy was forced to conclude that their guide was a hack and/or that the desert went on forever.  The man clasped his hands in that almost Ed-ish way and bowed; their hack-guide slipped down off of his horse—that the _bastard_ could still _move_ after all this made Roy want to cry endlessly foul—and strode over to start discussing the weather and the length of the journey and the amusement of traveling with inexperienced foreigners.  He sounded a little _too_ impressed with how well Riza had taken to this very specific sort of torture; Roy was going to have to keep an eye on him.

“Welcome,” the man in yellow said in Amestrian to the party at large as Roy pried his tormented body from the saddle.  “And, well, come.”

He looked terribly pleased with himself.  And he was sort of devilishly attractive when he looked terribly pleased.  And he couldn’t have been much older than Ed, and from the folds of his cross-body robe Roy could see that he was tall and whip-thin and wiry, and…

And Roy really was far enough gone to be sizing up a total stranger as a competitor for Ed’s attention.

It had been much too long a day spent on a goddamn horse to deal with that maturely, so he gave it a tremendous mental shove and tried to walk rather than stagger over and return the bow impeccably.

“Thank you,” he said.

“Brigadier General Mustang?” the young man asked, and that _grin_ —it seemed to be permanent; and it seemed to be mocking Roy, just too lightly to protest.  “And the Captain Hawkeye.”  Roy hadn’t even heard her footsteps in the sand—their guide was right, of course; she adjusted so smoothly to the new environment that it verged on preternatural.  “And the brothers Elric.”

“It’s very nice to meet you,” Alphonse said.

“S’up,” Ed said.

The young man bowed again.  “My name is Qiang Yao.  Please consider me your humble servant.  If you will follow me, just over this ridge is the town of Suzhao, where all of our hospitality will be at your command.”

Roy wasn’t sure quite what sort of hospitality to expect from the borderlands of Xing, and he tried to keep his hopes in check.

As it turned out, he needn’t have bothered.

The bath alone was enough to make him seriously consider becoming an expatriate.  The bathtub was almost more like a small well—wide-mouthed and cylindrical and shallow, large enough for him to spread all of his aching limbs without quite touching the heated stones that lined the bottom and set the whole surface to steaming.  They’d poured in oils, too; one had to be mint, and one smelled a bit like tangerine, and there was a hint of something floral, and the rest he couldn’t fathom.

The particulars couldn’t have mattered less; the overall effect was one of curling, mingling scents—sharp spices and gentler tones from the fruit and the flowers; it was soothing and refreshing and rejuvenating all at once.

And the soap stung like a _bitch_ in the saddle sores.  Roy made a valiant effort to luxuriate in the heat and fragrance anyway—Qiang had said that it was traditional for the most acclaimed individual to take his leisure first; for courtesy’s sake, Roy had attempted to demur, whether or not every jarred cell in his sand-scoured body was wailing _We haven’t been clean in days_.  But then Riza had very subtly nudged him forward with a very subtle elbow to the ribs, and Ed had said “You probably stink the most anyway,” and Roy had remembered that his relative rank and prestige were not exactly an issue for any of the present company.  In addition, he really wanted a fucking bath.

When at last it felt like there was only a small castle’s worth of sand clinging to his person, he dragged himself out of the Pool of Wonder and Sanity, wrapped himself in the provided towel, and began to make his way back out to the lounge where he’d left his luggage and therefore his clean clothes.

He hadn’t even made it out of the bathhouse before he’d been waylaid by two slender Xingese girls who pinned him down on a padded table and started kneading at his back.

Roy had had a dream like this once.  Except in the dream they hadn’t set more warm, smooth stones on each side of his spine and pressed sharp knuckles into the knots in muscles he hadn’t known he possessed.  And it had ended a bit differently, although this experience similarly concluded much too soon.

They still wouldn’t let him leave—when he finally fought for balance upon climbing off of the table, they offered him a pair of pale linen trousers and a dark blue robe, and they sat him down on a painted star within a circle, and in fifteen glowing seconds, the sores were healed.

There was—he thought as he dressed himself and bowed and bowed again and staggered out to the lounge and said “ _Move_ ” and dropped facedown onto the couch that had previously been occupied by the Elrics—an increasing danger of Roy Mustang deserting the Amestrian military altogether and staying here until he died or ran out of money for massages.

“Huh,” Ed said when a few moments passed and Roy only breathed deeply.  “Did they drug you?”

“This is not a chemical high, Fullmetal,” Roy said into the couch cushion.  “This is bliss like you have never experienced.  This is the new standard for contentment in your life.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Ed said.  “And like they slipped you something.”

Roy managed to raise a hand and point the way he’d come.  “Go.  That is an order.”

The silence was slightly odd, but Roy couldn’t quite muster the strength to raise his head and look when all of his muscles had turned to beautiful, quivering jelly beneath his softened skin.

“I dunno,” Ed said slowly.  “I don’t really—I don’t like people—I don’t like strangers touching me.”

What a wonderful couch this was.  “Their names are Bai and Shu.  Now you’re acquainted.”

It was strange how Ed’s body language was so pronounced that the _air_ changed when he bristled.  “Fuck _you_ , Musta—”

“Brother,” Al cut in, “I’ll go with you.  It’s nothing I haven’t seen before—” Oh, for the love of caffeinated beverages; just like that, Roy was thinking about Ed naked, wet, dripping, white towel slipping from his narrow hips.  “—and it’ll be nice to watch what they do so I can decide whether I feel up to all of it.”

“Fine,” Ed said.  “Thanks, Al.  C’mon.  General _High_ and Not-So-Mighty is probably gonna end up in a lazy-coma anyway.”

After the door had slammed behind them (and Al had squeaked “Sorry!”), Roy flailed an arm around a little.  He succeeded in turning his head on the couch cushion just as an attendant scurried over and bowed.

“He hates needles,” Roy said.  He’d learned the Xingese word just in case; he added it and reaped a very gratifying look of perfect comprehension.  “Spare the acupuncture, perhaps?”

Another bow; more scurrying; Roy relaxed wholly again and bit back a moan.

“Ah,” Riza said.  The nearest armchair creaked as she sat.  One of several holsters did not creak as she drew one of the four firearms on her person and quite unnecessarily checked the ammunition.

“Am I that obvious?” Roy asked in the clearest possible mumble.

“I’m afraid so, sir.”

“So Alphonse knew before I did, and Ed hasn’t the foggiest hint of a clue?”

“That would be my guess.”

“Well,” Roy said, “shit.”

 

* * *

 

He’s getting close—he’s getting tantalizingly close—he’s getting closer—and then his feet touch ground.

He almost doesn’t believe it at first.  It was starting to feel like he’d be descending forever—like he’d hang in limbo for the rest of his life, hand over hand over hand until his wrists gave out, and he plummeted.

He turns.  He blinks.  He steadies himself with one hand on the wall, not that he ever wants to touch that thing again.

“That,” Ed says, “is the slowest I have ever seen anyone flee for their life.”

“Wait until you get old,” Roy says.  “You’ll crawl onto my doorstep crying for forgiveness for all of the terrible things you’ve said to me.”

Ed snickers, claps, touches the cable, and has it coiled around his right forearm by the time Roy’s stopped shielding his eyes.  “Good damn luck getting me to crawl to you for anything, Mustang.”

Across the floor—no, across the _bed_ —Roy doesn’t care where; doesn’t care why, though he has his preferences—bare back, shoulders rolling, hair draping into his eyes, the sheets pooling before his knees, the mattress dimpling under the weight of his hands as he moves like a cat, and his eyes are so _hungry_ —

There really isn’t time to think about that.

Roy looks back at the tower.  He thinks he recalls doors once existing where there is now a stretch of blank wall decorated with transmutation marks.

“We’ll see,” he says.  “Shall we go?”

Ed hefts the coil of rope up onto his left shoulder—to balance, perhaps?  It’s a wonder his spine hasn’t contorted with the weight of his automail over ti…

His _spine_.  Roy would lick his spine, taste the bulb of every vertebra—

“Need to figure out where the fuck we’re going before we go,” Ed says.

Roy looks around and focuses on the trees this time, rather than on his dangling-from-the-rope height relative to them.  “I’m not familiar with this building as a landmark, but most of the literature says that the Hua Wei consider Lin Tu Forest one of their sacred spaces.  It’s one of the oldest and best-preserved pieces of wilderness in the region, in large part because they defend it so viciously, despite its being located only thirty miles east of the capital.”  When he stops staring at the trees, Ed is staring at him.  “What?”  He almost adds _Is there something on my face?_ before remembering that he’s covered in grime and blood, which would make that a fairly stupid question.

“It’s really weird,” Ed says, “how you can take a beating like that, and then climb down all goddamn-violet-slow, and I know you haven’t eaten in, like, two days either… and you still talk like a textbook.”

“I take international relations very seriously,” Roy says.  He does not say _The only thing I take more seriously are carnal relations_.

Ed eyes him.  “Right.  Well…” He swivels on his metal heel, glancing at the angle of the sun and the lichen on the trees, and then starts off at more of a stomp than really a stride.  “Westward ho.”

Roy is so damn tired he could lie down and fall asleep on gravel, but even now he’d follow that swinging gold ponytail anywhere.

“Quite,” he says, and they’re on their way.

 

* * *

 

It took another three days of travel to reach the capital—but at least the second leg took place largely in covered carts and carriages, with frequent stops for food and stretching.  It was a different world than the desert, and Roy found this world _much_ more amenable.

“If we actually get there before we all die of old age,” Ed said the final afternoon, laid out bonelessly on the carriage seat opposite Roy and Riza, his head in Alphonse’s lap, “I’m gonna punch Ling in the face.  Right-handed.  You just watch me.”

Roy watched Riza watching out the window, which was greatly preferable to imagining his and Alphonse’s positions switched so that he could drag his fingers through Ed’s hair.  “That will be an excellent way to thank him for the considerable resources he’s expended to facilitate our comfort.”

Ed scowled.  “He wouldn’t have to ‘facilitate our comfort’ if he hadn’t demanded we haul our asses all the way out here.  Whose side are you on, anyway?”

“My own,” Roy said.  “As always.”

“Fine,” Ed said.  “You can just stay over on your side while I beat the crap out of Ling.”

“Standing by while you decked the emperor of Xing would be a bit detrimental to my foreign policy plans.”

“Then act like you’re trying to help him, and I’ll deck you, too.  It’ll look real heroic.”

Roy set an elbow on the windowsill and looked out at the houses set into the hills—pale spots in the verdure like raindrops caught in the warm yellow light.  “If I have to pull rank to prevent you from instigating a diplomatic catastrophe, I will.  If I have to tie you to a pillar outside the palace to prevent you from instigating a diplomatic catastrophe, I can do that, too.”

He shouldn’t have gone there even as a hyperbolic hypothetical, but it was too late to take it back.

“None of that will be necessary,” Alphonse said, patting Ed’s shoulder.  “Brother knows that Lan Fan will humiliate him thoroughly again if he tries to do anything untoward to Ling.”

“I won that fight, you _traitor_ ,” Ed said.  “Despite the fact that she cheated with a grenade and ninja skills and secretly being a girl.”

“We’re on her territory now,” Alphonse said.  “You’re too smart to try anything.”

Ed glared up at him, rather unconvincingly.  “I hate it when you make it so that I either have to agree with you or announce that I’m stupid.”

Alphonse grinned.

And, naturally, was right.

Roy hadn’t spent much time with Ling—spare hours, really, in the safe house and the forest around it, most of which had been spent tenaciously fighting for their lives, not making conversation.  It had been enough time to take in a young man who reminded him of Ed and of himself: poised, quick, sharp-eyed, smart-mouthed, calculating, and mischievous.  Very likely that was why Ling had riled Ed so easily and with so much gusto: the young then-prince would clearly make either a powerful ally or a legitimate threat, and he was determined to provoke Ed as much as possible while they sorted out which it was.

The next time Roy had encountered him, he had been a homunculus, and Roy hadn’t been able to see him in any case.

This time, the boy was a king.

Roy hardly approved of monarchy for obvious reasons, but he could appreciate that Xing was a vastly different country with a vastly different history and a vastly different way of life.  Xing had barely even brushed shoulders with Amestris over the centuries while Xerxes had worn away between them; if Xing’s unique and storied history had selected feudalism as its preferred method of rule—and, more significantly, if feudalism was _working_ —then Roy was in no position to pass judgment.  He knew government in Amestris from the inside out.  In Xing, he was a stranger.  He was a tourist.  He was a mote of dust set against this nation’s antiquity.

Qiang had ensured that they were all dressed finely and traditionally, which lent some credibility to the three shocks of yellow hair that the Yao clan’s current representative was ushering into the emperor’s palace.  For all that Roy blended in marginally better than his captain and the last stock of Xerxes, he could still feel his skin prickling with the weight of other people’s eyes as Qiang quite cheerfully led them up an endless set of stairs and into an entrance hall like an opera house.  There were eyes everywhere—tapestry eyes in impossibly fine thread; eyes of statues and carvings fixed unblinking on his back; eyes sharply outlined in red and black kohl, half-hidden by careful swoops of inky hair or ornate sleeves or open fans.  The emperor of Xing knew how to make an impression.

Roy glanced at Riza to his right as they walked the endless thick carpet towards a staggeringly regal throne.  Anyone who had not been observing the nuances of her shoulders for over a decade would not recognize their tightness—although whether it was in answer to the challenge, in preparation for a fight, or because the holsters didn’t sit quite right under her borrowed raiment Roy couldn’t determine from a single look.

He slanted his gaze back at Ed and Alphonse.  The younger Elric looked positively _delighted_ —like his birthday had come early and coincided with the solstice, and a storm had given way to a pair of rainbows just as all of his friends arrived to shower him with gifts.  He was trying to look at everything, and his eyes were so bright and his smile so wide that Roy couldn’t help wondering if, in a life of his own choosing, he would have become nomadic voluntarily.

And Ed… looked like he was walking to the gallows.

Roy faced front, clearing and re-clearing his expression of anything other than calmness tempered with appropriate awe and underpinned by unshakable dignity.  It was a reasonably involved poker face; it required a bit of concentration.  But it didn’t need enough to stop him thinking.

What was Ed afraid of?  Actually, that was a stupid rhetorical question to himself inside his head; the only thing Edward Elric was _afraid_ of was losing people close to him.  Ed had explored every shade and nuance of wariness, circumspection, anxiety, sullenness, and rage, but _fear_ he reserved for the greatest of personal tragedies—of which, of course, he’d had his share.

What, then, had piqued Ed’s nerves enough to make him overcompensate with that hunched-shouldered glower?

Did this have something to do with that bizarre statement about long-distance friendships?  Roy hadn’t had a chance at the time to analyze the absurdity of it; Ed was a _dynamo_ , and his power was most concentrated up close.  He was a naked star in the night, down to the inescapable drag of his gravity and the likelihood of incineration if you gave in to it.

Then again, Roy couldn’t exactly count himself one of Ed’s friends.  An ally, yes; a mentor, if you tilted your head just the right way; a collaborator and a conspirator and a pain in the ass, certainly.  Far from a friend.  It was—strange, and slightly destabilizing, to think so suddenly that there was a large portion of Ed’s life and heart and universe to which Roy had no access simply because of the terms and circumstances of their acquaintance.  There were things in the way.  He was cut off, for someone’s safety, for both of theirs, perhaps.  Given Ed’s habit of all-or-nothing ultimatums in every aspect of his existence, Roy didn’t imagine that would ever change.

And now Brigadier General Roy Mustang of the Amestrian Military was standing in front of the emperor of Xing, trying to envision a world where he and Ed were perfect strangers who passed in the street, or both reached for a newspaper, or collided in a cafe.  Ed spilled his coffee all down the front of Roy’s uniform, and Roy very nearly lit him on fire right then and there, except that then he saw Ed’s eyes and couldn’t seem to locate his tongue, let alone a scathing reprimand to utter with it.

 _Mustang,_ Roy’s internal Führer monologue said slowly, _you are hereby ordered not to fuck this up like an unbelievable idiot._

Roy swallowed.  _Sir._

He looked up at the boy on the throne, met the trace of amusement in the dark eyes, and bowed.

Ling’s headpiece alone looked like it weighed more than Alphonse, and Roy didn’t even want to think about the robes.  Nonetheless, the moment he blinked, Ling had bounded off of the chair and was flinging both arms around Ed and pounding him on the back.

“I’d somehow forgotten how much I missed your frowny face!” the emperor of Xing was saying warmly.  “Don’t make me pinch your cheek to get a smile, Ed; you know I will!”  He gripped Ed’s shoulders, grinning borderline-maniacally, and turned to Alphonse.  Somehow his eyes lit up even more.  “Look at _you_!”  Roy blinked again, and Ling was pumping Al’s hand.  “You should give that brother of yours some growing lessons!”

“He should _whaaaaaat_?”

At least now Ed was himself again.

 

* * *

 

Ed digs the knuckles of his left hand into the juncture of metal and flesh on the right side of his chest.  “Are you _sure_ Lin Tu Forest is east of the capital?”

“Yes,” Roy says.

Ed kicks viciously at the undergrowth, as if it’s the forest’s fault that they managed to get themselves captured in a foreign country.  “You _sure_?  ’Cause we’ve been walking for a long fucking time.”

“It’s not even dark yet.  We’ve hardly been walking long enough to cover thirty miles.  It’s probably closer to four.”

“Damn it.  This is going to take fucking forever.  Al and Captain Hawkeye are gonna fuckin’ leave without us at this rate.”

“You know very well they will not.  My concern is that they’ll track us all the way to the tower only to find that we’ve already started back.”

“This fucking sucks.”

“I concede the point.”

“I told you this wasn’t going to be a fucking vacation.”

“I concede that point as well.”

“You’re fucking useless.”

“That’s a bit much.”

“ _Fuck_.”

“Look on the bright side,” Roy says.  “At least we’re not being pursu—”

Of course that’s when they hear distant shouts and cracking branches.

“You just _had_ to say it,” Ed says.  “You just fucking _had_ to.”

“Sorry,” Roy says.

And then they run.

 

* * *

 

Initially, Roy couldn’t help keeping a mental tab for the ceremony—costumes; banners; lanterns; flowers shredded into petal confetti in advance; startlingly luxurious new robes for Roy and Riza and the Elrics and quite possibly a number of other dignitaries; organizers’ rates; dancers and gymnasts and puppeteers for the parade; a gilt-filigreed litter held high; guards’ salaries, and did the Xingese pay overtime?

When it stopped being a ceremony so much as a festival—so much as a _party_ —he lost track.

It wasn’t his fault.  The whole capital was lit and gleaming and giddy and splashed with color; everything was red and black and golden; the strings of lanterns dipped and swung, and the banners snapped, and everyone was _smiling_ , and perhaps there was a case to be made after all for processions that involved more than just dress uniforms and a few miniature flags.  Perhaps the cost was not so cut and dry when the whole night was _alive_ with celebration.

Roy couldn’t help getting swept up—swept in, swept through.  The capital was a maze of cobblestone streets; the labyrinth had been dizzying before, and it was _dazzling_ now, with every window lit and every citizen’s face split by a grin that flashed beneath the lanterns.  Riza was leading them along the avenues, past the booths and under the endless strings of colored flags; on his own Roy would have long since gotten irretrievably lost.  It was amazing that his eyes hadn’t fallen out of his head, and that no insects had flown into his mouth; a tiny part of him that wasn’t floating rather hoped that he still had his wallet.

Alphonse had brought a camera.  He kept balancing it on Ed’s metal shoulder in lieu of a tripod, chattering half-audibly about motion blur and inconsistent lighting and night shots and the new technique for developing better colors, and Roy just _prayed_ that he would take one proper photograph of his brother’s face.  Ed was amazed and illuminated, silent and staring in _delight_.  Roy would haven given anything to bottle that look like the finest of liquors—bright amber, tangy and heady and burning sweet.  Just an ounce; he could make it last for the rest of his time on this wonderful planet; he would take such tiny sips so slowly that it would never run dry.

They wound their way into a wide square right as the fireworks began above the palace.  Among the gasping and the booming and the colors ravaging the sky, Roy thought of the explosive brevity of a human life and admitted the truth to himself in so many words.

 _I’m in love with him,_ he thought.  It was easier than he’d expected—it was a _relief_ , actually.  _I’m in love with Ed.  It has been a slow and inevitable slide, and I fought it, but it won, and he would think I was mocking him if I said it, but it’s a fact.  I love his intellect and his courage and his dogmatically unwavering morality and his resilience and his sarcasm and his brilliance and his beauty.  I love his scientific compulsion to question everything, including me—especially me.  I love the way he looks at his brother like his heart’s too full to bear and the rest of the world is so much static in the background.  And there is so, so little I wouldn’t sacrifice to have him look at me that way just once._

Could you wish on fireworks instead of meteors?  That sounded cheap.

It didn’t matter.  Life was good.  The universe seemed to have taken an unscheduled break from its usual occupation of kicking them all in increasingly tender places whilst clad in steel-toed boots.

So Roy raised his eyes to the magnificent display of pyrotechnic prowess in celebration of a boy not unlike Ed—too young and too jaded already; too powerful by half and too compassionate to contemplate abusing that power; clever and silly and instigating change with every indrawn breath.  Ed really should have gotten a parade in Amestris, except for the obvious problem that he would have seen them all dead before he let them spend the taxpayers’ money feting him.

Well, in some sense, this whole profusion of splendor was for Ed, too: he’d been instrumental in Ling’s success.  It had been a team effort.  And Roy’s heart was rising, rising, swelling, emanating heat—

There it was, then.  Fireworks strafing color across the black sky; the tips of his bare fingers tingling in the cold while his chest stayed warm; Edward Elric at his elbow, very nearly against his arm.  An almost-perfect night.  And almost was enough.

 

* * *

 

“Okay, _General_ ,” Ed calls as he vaults effortlessly over a dead tree.  Meanwhile, it’s all Roy can do not to fall on his face and get his nose broken for real this time.  “What do we do?”

“That depends,” Roy says.

He’s not sure how Ed can have the breath to run for his life and snort derisively at the same time; it must be glorious to be young.  “It _depends_?”

“On whether you would like me to torch them,” Roy says.

“They’re _people_ ,” Ed says adamantly.  “If you torch them, I will fucking end you.”

Roy stumbles as a particularly marshy patch of soil gives beneath his feet.  “Two options, then—keep running, or stand and fight.”

“This is why you suck,” Ed says.

He skids to a stop, lichen spraying from beneath his boot treads, and Roy almost topples trying to slow his own momentum—

Before he’s even had time to assess the available geological resources for striking sparks off of Ed’s arm, half a dozen of the Hua Wei tear out of the woods to bear down on them—to Roy’s dismay, the tall, silent one with the crossbow has already leveled a bolt at him.

“Let’s see how they like a fair fight,” Ed says, and his palms meet, and he drops to one knee to press his hands to the soil.

The bedrock.  Edward Elric can bend the _bedrock_ to his every whim; the boy can clap his hands and literally reshape the planet.  When Roy lets his guard down and conceptualizes the sheer unrivaled _might_ of Ed’s talent, it terrifies him.

The stone roars upward, earth rumbling, displaced dirt hissing, and takes the shape of a deep bowl, raised on a pillar like a goblet.  There are several not-entirely-necessary spikes along the rim, and evidently there’s space inside to contain the entire collection of their captors-turned-pursuers—perhaps not entirely comfortably, judging by the indignant yelling from within.

Ed straightens with a satisfied little smile, but Roy’s instincts balk—

And when he chaotic jostling within the trap resolves into a heavy shift of weight, and the silent man with the crossbow launches himself just high enough to aim, Roy throws himself sideways and tackles Ed to the shattered ground.

It’s always the quiet ones.

He levers himself off of Ed before any accusations of fatness can be shouted in his face, meets Ed’s startled eyes, and opens his mouth to say _There’s no such thing as a fair fight, Fullmetal._

What comes out is “Mother _fucker_.”

They both look over and notice that there is a crossbow bolt protruding from Roy’s calf muscle.

“You should say that more often,” Ed says faintly.  “Sounds good.  You drop a solid F-bomb.”

“Thank you,” Roy says.  “Would you mind removing this so that we can proceed before he adds another?”

Ed shifts, so Roy shifts back to offer his afflicted left leg, glancing up at the vessel full of Hua Wei, which is still producing a great deal of furious sounds.  Ed sets his jaw, reaches out with his right hand, and—

—puts Roy in the most spectacular agony in a very long while.  But it’s not as bad as Bradley stabbing through the flesh of his palms, and it’s not even in the same category of pain as Lust’s attempts to shish-kebab his organs and the rush cauterization job that followed, so Roy will simply grit his teeth and—

“Bet you don’t usually ask guys to pull out the shaft,” Ed says lightly.

While Roy is goggling at him in wordless disbelief, Ed claps, touches Roy’s trouser leg, and transmutes it into a bandage so tight that Roy barely catches the cry behind his teeth.

“Are you ready?” he asks, trying not to pant.  “I’m only going to do this once.”

Ed blinks.  “Do wh—”

“Motherfucking-piece-of-shit-son-of-a- _bitch_.”

Ed is wide-eyed and silent for a moment.  Then he says “It’s so weird when you’re awesome,” and then he’s hauling Roy upright and slinging Roy’s arm across his shoulders, and they’re hobbling off as fast as the spears of pain vivisecting Roy’s leg will allow.

 

* * *

 

Roy was ever-so-slightly ashamed to discover that he was hungover the morning after the coronation ceremony.  He’d waxed the tiniest bit bitter once the fireworks had stopped, and the celebratory spirit had worn down to much more ordinary weariness.  Riza gave him the _You and I both know you will regret this, sir_ look when he started accepting most of the cups of wine held out to the passing revelers by patriotic merchants.  And he _did_ know; he knew that his skull would feel dried out and rattly and like it was being squeezed in a vise when he woke; he considered the price, and he knocked half a dozen drinks back anyway.  He just wanted to hold onto the feeling of peace—the contentment, the low-and-strongly-burning joy, the total acceptance of his place in the universe.  And the buzz of the alcohol in his veins, the blurring at the edges of his mind, had helped at first.  It had dulled the edges of the analysis that inevitably shouldered its way into his thoughts—the things he should have done, could have said, might have had; the things he could still have if he wanted them badly enough.

Because he could have had Ed—could have had him for a while.  Brigadier General Roy Mustang could have _anyone_ for a while.  The boyish grin plus the hair in his eyes, multiplied by charisma and gallant urbanity squared, times the prestige and the power, plus the mystery of Flame Alchemy and the dark drama of a war veteran—he could be intoxicatingly irresistible.  He could turn the magnetism on and off.  The façade was faultless.

The veneer always scraped off slowly, though.  Roy always gradually tired of sustaining the charm—broadcasting attractiveness was draining.  The tact, the quips, the beaming smiles, the fluid shrugs, the long gazes and the florid compliments were all _exhausting_ , and the cumulative energy they demanded left Roy enervated after that first rush of open potential, that initial challenge, that _what if_.

Perhaps it was better to specify that _Brigadier General Mustang_ could have anyone his eyes lighted on—but Brigadier General Mustang never loitered long.  _Roy_ , who was thoughtful and cautious and critical, who trusted himself only a fraction more than he trusted others, who went without sleep to keep up with alchemy publications, who more often than not just wanted a quiet night in, who dreamt in red and woke up hateful, who couldn’t drink coffee without cream, who couldn’t stop questioning, who couldn’t live up to the promises, who couldn’t be happy with whatever he had, who couldn’t give without giving _everything_ , who loved so stiflingly that the sane and the savvy and the independent fled…

He could have had Ed—for a while.  He could have come on hard and hot and snatched that fierce little heart up in one hand.  He could have held it out of reach for a long time, perhaps; for the sake of keeping Ed, he could have found the strength to stay seductive; Ed would not have been a toy.  But he couldn’t have kept it up forever.

Ed would have drawn back, as the sheen faded; as Brigadier General Mustang gave way, and patches of Roy showed through.  Ed’s gaze would have drifted and snagged on someone else—someone young, and bright, and fun; someone pleasant; someone uncomplicated.

Someone like Ling, who was feeding Ed a tiny pinkish dumpling at the moment Roy finally braved the lunchroom.

“Brigadier General!” Ling said, and good _God_ , did he have to shout?

Ed lurched backwards, cheeks stuffed, eyes huge, face aflame—away from Ling’s long fingers holding the chopsticks.

“How kind of you to join us,” Ling said while Ed struggled to swallow.  “Can I tempt you with a spread of Xingese delicacies?  I’m sure you’re better with your chopsticks than Ed over here.”

“Shutthefuckup,” Ed choked out.

Roy was not allowed to feel a hot-poison sting of jealousy rankling in his throat.  For one thing, he had no claim whatsoever to Edward Elric; for another, he was _thirty-one goddamn years old_.  As a bonus, the jealousy on top of the hangover made him feel like he was going to vomit.

Slightly delicately, he sat.  Ling and Ed had just flopped down on the floor, but Roy’s back wasn’t up for that nowadays, and in addition his reputation would suffer greatly if he tried to lounge artfully and immediately started dropping food all over his clothes.

“Did you party a bit too heartily last night, Brigadier General?” Ling asked, looking positively delighted at the prospect.

“Only to demonstrate my great admiration for Xing and its rulership,” Roy said.  Speaking made it feel like his mouth was full of cotton and sand.  He didn’t quite dare to clear his throat as he selected a cup from the rather haphazard tray of dishes and filled it with—

“That dishwater shit doesn’t count as _tea_ ,” Ed said.  “It doesn’t even have caffeine.”

Roy and Ling leveled the exact same look of long-sufferance at the exact same time, so perhaps the young emperor was not all bad.

Ed scowled at both of them and then shifted his whole body at once in that disconcertingly feline way he had—everything undulated, and then he was stretched out on his front, chin propped up on a hand, prodding at the rather large supply of food with a chopstick.  “Which other ones are all shrimpy?”

Roy raised a silver tray towards him to act as a mirror.

As it turned out, it hurt to have chopsticks hurled at one’s already-aching head.

Ling laughed with his whole body the same way Ed did, and Roy wondered whether it was the shared youth or the shared fearlessness.

“Shut up!” Ed said, and then he scowled until Ling’s shoulders stopped shaking, and the emperor of Xing dragged in a breath and slowly released it as a massive and contented sigh.

“Try the sticky rice, General,” Ling said.

Roy obliged in large part because he was hoping to garner an expression of amazement from Ed as he ostensibly set a ball of lotus leaves on his plate only to unwrap them and reveal actual food.  Naturally, Ed did not disappoint.

“There is something _wrong_ with the people who do your cooking,” Ed said.

“You’re lucky I spared you the chicken feet,” Ling said.  “Did you make plans for today, General?”

“Not as yet,” Roy said.  “I’d hate for you to have to entertain us; the captain and I can find someth—”

“I’m sending Ed and Al out to tour the alkahestry academy,” Ling said.  “If we’re lucky, they’ll even survive.  It’s the perfect opportunity for us to discuss business, don’t you think?”

Roy looked at Ed, who had discovered the rice noodles with the minced beef wrapped inside and was therefore deaf to the conversation.

“I think that sounds extremely productive,” Roy said.

As it transpired, Ling and Roy had another thing in common: a talent for ruthless efficiency tucked underneath an appearance of laziness.  Within the hour, Alphonse had arrived and wolfed down lunch so fast that Roy felt ill, Riza had been fetched from her in-depth conversation with the head of the palace guard, Roy had shotgunned some sort of noxious herbal concoction to mitigate his headache, the Elrics had been packed up and sent out for their tour, and Ling was leading Roy and Riza on a long stroll through the high-ceilinged halls.

Roy was having a bit of trouble avoiding the extremely long train of Ling’s robes even though the throbbing in his head was beginning to recede.

“I didn’t expect that I’d ever be grateful for the Amestrian dress uniform,” he said, gesturing to the fabric pooling on the floor.  “The effect is stunning, of course, but the size alone must be troublesome.”

“It’s not so bad,” Ling said.  “I had the seamstresses make my whole wardrobe custom; the designs are very traditional, but the little catches inside that let me tear everything off in two and a half seconds are quite innovative.  I’m hoping we might be able to shave some time off of that for my everyday robes—two and a half seconds is a long time if the assassin is any good.  And they’d have to be _very_ good to get that far.”

“Oh?” Roy said.

Riza coughed delicately into her fist, but it was too late.

There was an incremental change in the air currents—Roy spun instinctively and found himself face-to-face with the slender figure that had just dropped down from the ceiling.

“Hello,” he said.  His voice came out sounding nice and cordial, although it was a shame that he couldn’t seem to unfreeze from his guarded stance.  “You’re looking well.”

The solemn dark eyes visible through the mask narrowed a little, and then they crinkled at the corners with a smile.

“I’d forgotten you hadn’t seen it,” Lan Fan said, raising her left arm for scrutiny.  “What do you think?”

“I think it’s terrifying,” Roy said.  “And a work of art.”

“Stop flirting with my bodyguard,” Ling said.

“As soon you stop sneaking glances at my captain’s cleavage.”

Ling laughed all the way through to the tips of his fingers again.  “You have yourself a deal.”

Much as it had been a very _General Mustang_ compliment, Roy had meant what he said—and it was strange, wasn’t it, that most automail looked so _hostile_?

Ed’s didn’t.  Lan Fan’s arm was all sharp-plated angles and built-in knives; Captain Buccaneer’s Roy remembered as half-chainsaw and half-medieval club.  Roy would have to thank Winry someday, because Ed’s automail was not a slice of steel; it was a _part_ of him.  The love in it was evident: she had built something elegant and powerful and eminently useful, and for all that it was a replacement, it suited his extraordinariness like no plain flesh could have done.  It was beautiful in all of the same ways he was, and it was _human_ , whether or not the silver gleam against the gold made him look too precious altogether to touch.  Ed’s arm defined him—‘Fullmetal’, after all; and of course the cost of it was what had laid out his whole life.  And Ed’s automail was apparently unusual in that it was, more than most, a limb like any other—it wasn’t a weapon until he used it that way.

“So,” Ling said, and the train began to drag across the floor again; “let’s talk trade.”

So they did.

They talked railroads, tariffs, labor laws, the stupid desert, routing through Xerxes or _not_ disturbing a historical ruin and an informal monument to the dangers of alchemy _thank you very much_ , the division of funding, resource agreements, and jurisdiction of the wayside stations.

“Your fluency is absolutely remarkable,” Roy couldn’t help saying after Ling used the word ‘superlative’ in a sentence with a flash of the spotlight grin.  “We barely even have how-to books for learning Xingese.”

Ling shrugged—possibly; it was difficult to tell under the robes.  “The Yao clan realized a long time ago that if we couldn’t be the biggest or the strongest, we would be wise to have the biggest, strongest friends.  We teach Amestrian starting very young.  Maybe that’s something else we could exchange.”

It had not yet ceased to unsettle Roy immensely that he was hearing everything alchemically now—and, worse, that it often made perfect political _sense_.

“And we want Maria Ross back,” Ling said.  “She’s a national hero, you know.”

Roy didn’t bother to suppress the grin.  “I know.  I’ll propose it to her.  After everything she’s been through on both of our accounts, I’m not willing to uproot her for the sake of diplomacy—but if she _wants_ to, I’ll back it all the way.”

Ling stopped walking again, and Roy at his right paused as well.  Ling’s eyes were sharp and amused at once, and Roy very slowly tightened his hands around each other where they were clasped behind his back.

“ _That’s_ why he hasn’t defected,” Ling said.  “You’re very… decent, General.  You’re purer than you think.”

Roy mentally retracted everything he had said about Ling’s grasp of the Amestrian language.  “I… beg your pardon?”

“That’s not enough, though,” Ling said slowly, gazing at the wall.  “When you walked in earlier—the look on your face—Ed expected judgment.  That’s what he’s accustomed to, from you; you pass judgment, and you make corrections, and you steer him right.”  Roy wanted to tell him that it had always been closer to the other way around, but Ling didn’t stop for breath.  “Remember that, by the way—and consider how many people’s opinions actually _matter_ to Ed.  In any case, I…” He grinned and folded his arms across his chest, tucking his hands into his rather capacious sleeves.  “Well, I don’t know you, General, so I didn’t have expectations.  I wasn’t looking for anything but what was _there_.”

This could not possibly be going where Roy feared it would—

Ling frowned at the floor for a long moment before he spoke.  “What Ed and I had was everything it needed to be at the time.  It was what we needed to get through those days—something else to think about, mostly; something good enough that Greed let us have it just to skim off the top sometimes.  When we were getting close to civilization again, Ed took me aside on one of our last nights and asked me if I meant it.  I knew what he was getting at, but I played dumb, obviously.  Ed usually just assumes you really _are_ that dumb, which works out fine.  But this time he said… ‘I don’t want it if you don’t mean it.’  Pretty good ultimatum, huh?”

Roy swallowed.  Ling looked him in the eyes.  He could feel Riza’s, too, tracking the changes in Ling’s face down to the angle of his eyebrows.

“I suppose,” Roy said.

Ling smiled.  His shoulders rose a fraction and then dropped.  “I thought about it—I did.  Doubt anything you like but that.  It was… sincere, you know?  What we had was honest, if nothing else.  But I understood Ed by then, and I knew what he was really asking.  The whole time, Greed was in my head, shouting at me, _But you want him, you idiot kid; we_ take _the things we want, and we_ keep _them, or are you new around here?_   And I thought about that.  I thought about holding onto him.  But it was _Ed_ —you know how _much_ he is.  You know that better than anyone except Al, by the sound of it.  And I knew I couldn’t take him and keep him and make him be second to this.”  Ling spread his hands to indicate the corridor, the palace, the country, the life.  “I think he might have accepted it if I’d offered, but _I_ wouldn’t have forgiven myself if I did that to him.  So I let him go.  I left him to be found by someone who could afford to give him everything he deserved—which is just _everything_.  I left him to be found by someone who would understand that the equivalent exchange for Ed’s love is everything you’ve got.”

His gaze flicked up to Roy’s forehead and slid down slowly, in stuttering increments, until it reached his toes.

“Ed is very important to me,” Ling said.  “I want him to be happy.  And so I want you to do two things for me, General.  I want you to ask yourself if you are the person I’ve described.  And if you are, I want you to prove it to him—whatever it takes.”

Roy…

Roy really could not deal with this in the wake of a tremendous diplomatic discussion and on top of a hangover.

Ling beamed.  “Well!” he said.  “That should be interesting.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a few things to finalize for your trip tomorrow.  I’ll tell you about that later; don’t you fret, Captain.”  He started down the hall, robes trailing, waving over his shoulder without turning his head.  “Ta-ta!”

It took Roy a few moments to do anything more intelligent than blinking.

He cleared his throat.  “Is it _that_ obvious?”

Riza smiled ruefully.

From the shadows of the ceiling, Lan Fan’s voice said, “Yes, it is.”

 

* * *

 

The last of the light is dying, and Roy’s left leg is alive with pulsing flame.  That seems poetically just.  Perhaps he’ll just lie down and burn out to nothing.

He doesn’t really want to let go of Ed—how long might it be before he has another chance to hold so tightly to him?—but beneath the more pressing sensation of the fiery agony, his knees feel like tapioca pudding.

“They won’t still be…” Good Lord, is that all he can manage with a single breath?  “…following.”

Ed doesn’t even slow down from his furious, singleminded tromp.  “How the hell do you figure?”

“It’s getting too dark, and… besides, if they’ve even… climbed out of your trap by now, they haven’t had time… to fetch reinforcements.  They’d have to double back.”

Ed is squinting into the encroaching night as though it personally offends him.  “Then we should push our lead.”

It’s difficult to argue with that, because it’s what Roy would demand if he wasn’t so… tired.

“I can’t,” he says.  “Ed, I’m not strong enough.”

Ed stops—well, stops _short_.  It’s not Roy’s fault.

The trace of amusement slithers back down to the pit of his stomach and dies when Ed’s eyes fix on his face, and even in the dimness they _blaze_.

“What?” Ed asks.

“I’m exhausted,” Roy says, fighting the urge to gulp in full and proper breaths of air, to double over panting, to collapse to the carpet of pine needles strewn across the ground.  “Every step is excruciating, and my head has gone light; I know that’s a bad si—”

“You’re not strong enough?” Ed asks slowly, and—there it is; he withdraws his arm from under Roy’s and steps back.  “What the fuck, Mustang?”

Rarely in Roy’s life does he have occasion to say truthfully that he has no idea what the hell is going on, but now is one of those times.  “I… am a human being, Ed, if you hadn’t noticed.”

And then it’s strange to think about—strange to think that it was Alphonse who witnessed the aftermath of the battle with Lust; strange to think that Ed saw him drag himself out of the Gate, blinded and bursting with knowledge, and _get back up_ ; strange to think that Ed can’t really be blamed for assuming that Roy Mustang was something more than mortal.

He’s always wanted to be.  It never occurred to him to tap a Philosopher’s Stone for eternity, but he’s not just an alchemist; he’s also a soldier.  In the history of a country, every leader lives forever.

And he’s always tried to be just the slightest bit incomprehensible in front of Ed, hasn’t he?  He’s always tried to be smooth, aloof, unruffled, unbowed.  He has always striven to be something greater than a man.

“Of course I _noticed_ , dumbass,” Ed says—not looking at Roy, dragging his filthy left hand through his hair.  “It’s just… well, fuck it anyway; we could be dead by the time we wake up.  But—you’ve always been the strong one when I wasn’t, okay?  You’re always too-smart and above it, and you know what you’re fucking doing all the time.  So ex _cuse_ me if it’s fucked up to hear you say something like… that.”

“I’m… sorry,” Roy says.  “I—I’m afraid sometimes I’m really rather pathetic.”  His knees actually _wobble_.  He didn’t realize knees could do such a thing.  In fear of affronting them further and prompting them to worse, he sits down on the nearest available log.  “Now, for instance.”

Ed rolls his eyes.  The light has more or less entirely failed; a slant of moonlight through the naked branches catches on the yellow spark.  “You got a crossbow bolt in the leg.  I guess you’re allowed to be pathetic just this once.  I mean, not that it’s not _weird as hell_ , but I can’t really stop you.”

Roy laughs, dryly—literally dryly, feeling as though his throat has been rubbed down with sand; and tonally dryly, because ‘wry’ suits Brigadier General Mustang better than ‘weeping’.  “I’m sorry to impose.”

Ed paces around twitchily for a few moments before he drops down next to Roy like a particularly sullen stone.  “You don’t have to keep apologizing for the fact that we got our asses kicked today.”

Roy sets his jaw and lifts his right calf up to balance it on his left knee.  “I’m concerned this is going to get infected.”

“Just spit on it,” Ed says.  “It’ll be fine.”

His grin is luminous in the dark and only brightens further at Roy’s glare.

“Never mind,” Roy says.  He would kill for a fifth of whiskey; whether he would pour half of it on the wound or drink the entirety he hasn’t quite decided.  “It can wait until tomorrow, provided that we don’t freeze to death tonight.”

“We won’t,” Ed says.  “I’ll make us a cave, and you can make us a campfire.  You ever had roasted rabbit?”

It was hares, in the desert, when the rations ran low.  “That sounds terrifically appetizing.”

“Such a violet,” Ed says, and starts clapping them a shelter.

Roy averts his gaze from the searing light, watching electric blue playing in the shadows of the trees.  He tries not to think about the fact that he will be spending the night cold and in pain and entirely alone while Edward Elric lies within arm’s reach.

 

* * *

 

“It’s traditional,” Ling said.

Apparently tradition could justify anything in Xing—at least when you and your sideways-slipping grin _were_ Xing.

“Hiking four miles,” Ed said slowly, hackles rising with the volume of his voice, “clinging to some kind of janky platform on a cliff face, and crawling up to some shrine just to dunk our heads in some shitty spring is _traditiona_ —”

“Brother,” Alphonse said calmly, “shut up.”

Ed’s mouth snapped closed, just like that, but he didn’t look pleased about it.

“Of course we’ll go,” Alphonse said.  “That sounds like a wonderful and culturally-educational excursion.  We would be honored.”

Ling was grinning and trying to make it look like his amusement was not entirely at Ed’s expense.

Ed was too busy kicking uncharitably at the rug to notice.  “I can think of about a billion things I’d rather do with my last day in Xing than blow the whole thing trekking up some stupid, too-big mountain.”

There was a pause, and Ed glanced over at Roy—who looked back at him entirely blankly for a moment before realizing that he’d missed a cue to say something about how it wouldn’t be such a trek if Ed’s legs weren’t so short.

It was just that he’d been watching Ed spitting fire and thinking that Ling, in his vital youth and its effortless arrogance, had missed a critical point.  It didn’t matter how much Roy would, could, wanted to give if Ed didn’t want it _from_ him.  Ling talked like Ed came cheap.

Roy wasn’t that stupid.

“Surely you can set aside your personal objections for such an important rite of passage,” he said in his idlest tones.  “You’ll be a bigger man for it—figuratively speaking.”

Somehow Ed had acquired an entire pocketful of tiny paper cranes, which Roy found out when all of them were hurled into his face at once.

 

* * *

 

Roy wakes feeling worse than he did when the sheer exhaustion dragged him down into oblivion.  He aches everywhere—the cold, deep, bone-weary stiffness that can only be derived from sleeping on a hard, flat surface too long.  It feels as though he’s been rubbing dust directly onto his own eyeballs.  His left leg throbs almost mournfully, like it knows it’s been forgotten and will only be pushed aside again as the day begins.

Ed sleeps on.  He’s eerily quiet when he sleeps; Roy can’t help wondering if he’s plotting something in his dreams.  He snores very quietly—just the faintest whistle of breath, in and out, his cheek pressed to his forearm; the folds of the fabric will leave lines.  Roy wants to tuck his hair back behind that intricate little ear and stroke a single fingertip down along his jaw.

Instead he stands, tries to stretch, tries not to wince, and staggers out to assess the first pale forays of the dawn.

There’s a sharp, erratic rustling as he starts out of their makeshift hovel-cave, and in the gray-blue light he can see that one of Ed’s traps secured a rabbit after all.

“Edward,” he says.

“Nnh.  Fi’ m’r m’ns.”

“Edward, breakfast.”

“…say what?”

He’ll have to remember that.

He pockets the excellent bit of flint he finds for coaxing sparks from Ed’s automail (they’ve agreed, for both of their safety, not to tell Miss Rockbell of this).  And as the rabbit that Ed had petted and thanked and then slaughtered grimly (Roy flinched as he skinned it before remembering that the boy received his alchemical training behind a butcher’s shop) turns on their improvised spit, Roy focuses on the flame.

He sautés, when he has time to cook.  He bakes.  He broils.  He grills.  He does not roast.  Whatever the meat is, it always ends up smelling too much like a human being, and he loses his appetite.

He’s lost it now, but he makes himself eat anyway.  He’ll be glad of it later.

It’s starting to unnerve him how difficult it is to hide things from Ed—it seems like he just _feels_ more, feels more _powerfully_ , when Ed is in front of him, and the shell of concealment trembles trying to hold it all in.

He feels—sick.  He has to eat, has to eat _this_ , but the meat and gristle and grease are going hard and sour in his mouth.  A trickle of hot juice runs down his hand, just the right consistency—just the right thickly heavy drip of warmth—and cuts through the dirt, leaves his bare flesh glistening—

He can’t give up; he needs the food.  _Just turn a blind eye, Mustang; you’re so good at that._

He makes his tongue and teeth keep moving; makes his throat swallow.  He feels _sick_ —ill, churning, unclean.  He feels _wrong_.

Ed… doesn’t seem to notice.  But then, Ed eats the way he reads, the way he does anything—Ed gets absorbed by the everyday, eats like he’s ravenous, reads like his sight’s going, sleeps like the dead, and then breezes through the impossible.  Ed finds reports to be a nigh-on-unbearable chore, but he’ll rappel down a building without a second thought.

Ed should be the one to run this country—Ed and his golden heart.  Ed, who cannot back down, who doesn’t know the meaning of ‘compromise’.  Ed, who would never fail them, who would never fail _himself_.

Ed, who is groaning, holding both hands over his stomach, and dropping back onto the leaves.  “Half a rabbit was so _filling_ when I was a kid.”

The blackened flesh in Roy’s mouth tastes like ash and sand.  “Perhaps your stomach is bigger now, even if nothing else—”

Ed growls at him emphatically, leaps up, and stalks over to disassemble their makeshift cave.  Roy tosses the bones and the fat into the fire and stands, making a halfhearted attempt to wipe his greasy fingers on his trouser legs.

“Well,” Ed says, planting his hands on his hips and grinning the most devastating of all the grins.  “Westward ho.  Unless you’re not up to it, old man.”

“I do not want to burn awkward pictograms of phalluses onto exposed areas of your skin,” Roy says, focusing on killing the fire’s supply of oxygen; “but if I have to, I will.”

“…all right, so that’s the last thing I would’ve thought you’d say to that.”

“You called me ‘old,’” Roy says, stifling the flames and turning his attention to the larger, slower, duller burn of dawn on the horizon.  “I was simply demonstrating that ‘old’ does not necessarily mean ‘stodgy’ or ‘mature’.”

Ed skips up alongside him, spraying pine needles with abandon.  Put a little bit of food in him, and he’s all brightness again.  “It kind of loses the effect when you explain it.”

Roy raises an eyebrow at him, and they start walking, away from the dawn.  “You would have spent the entire day ruminating if I hadn’t said anything, and you’d been forced to reason it out yourself.”

“Nah,” Ed says.  “I just give up with you.  You never make any damn sense, so it’s a waste of time.  I pretend you’re straight-up crazy and don’t respond to logic; that works much better.”

“That the picture is too large for you to see does not necessarily make it illogical,” Roy says, and then he tries not to smile as he waits.

“It’s not even _logic_ with you so much as doing your damnedest to manipulate everybody else half just ’cause you _ca_ … wait a damn second, who’s so small he can’t see over the pawns on your fucking chessboard?”

Roy keeps his face schooled into absolute seriousness as he raises a hand and pats Ed on the top of the head.

He almost get his eyes clawed out, which is _entirely_ worth it.

The triumph fades quickly; Ed’s scowl persists.

“ _Not_ short,” he mutters after a while.  “Slightly smaller than average, within a totally normal statistical margin for the human species, _maybe_ , but I make up for it by being such a huge badass.”

“I think you’re the perfect size,” Roy says before he can stop himself.

Ed blinks at him.  “I don’t get it.  What’s the joke?”

“It wasn’t a slight,” Roy says.

Ed’s wide eyes go shuttered, and his eyebrows arch.

“Pardon me,” Roy says, focusing on articulating the words, a bit at the expense of his balance.  “I misspoke.  I wasn’t goading you; I like you at precisely the height that you are.”

Ed’s expression goes from _I see what you did there_ to _What the crap?_

“Since when do you _like_ me?” he asks.

“One of the ways that we’re too alike,” Roy says, “in cataclysmic compliment to our shared obstinacy, is that we’re rather bad at expressing affection.”

The pause is very long.  Roy admires the shift of the butter-yellow light through the trees.

“You… feel… _affection_ … for _me_?”

When Roy lost his grip and fantasized about this conversation, it tended to involve a great deal more of Ed hurling himself at Roy’s chest and wailing about long-concealed love grown too potent to suppress.  It had also tended to take place in a conservatory or a terraced garden, which should have been his first clue that he was way off.  All the same, this seems a bit… mundane.  “Of course I do.”

“I mean, I know you’re always—watchin’ our backs, keepin’ our asses out of the worst trouble when you can, but… okay, also, ‘affection’ is a stupid word.”

“Is it?”

“It’s all… sharp.  It’s practically got ‘fuck’ in it, except it’s supposed to be about warm fuzzy shit.  Whoever coined it sucks.”  He slants an accusatory gaze up at Roy.  “I know I’m not a fucking poet, but neither is whoever thought that up, so wipe that smirk off your face before I do it for you.”

“This isn’t a smirk,” Roy says.  “It’s just a smile twisted by a bit of wry amusement.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s true.  I assure you that this is just how I smile.”

“And I assure you that’s bull _shit_ , because I’ve seen how you smile, and it’s not like that.  When you smile at Elysia or Hayate or even Al, sometimes—that’s different.  None of that snarky-bastard face in it.”

“I am hurt,” Roy says, “that you don’t appreciate the snarky-bastard face, Edward.”

More than that, he’s stunned that Ed pays enough attention to him to recognize the distinction.  That Ed, who has been known to miss shouts of his name, shoves to his shoulder, natural disasters, and multiple deadlines when he’s intent on something, has noticed the nuances of Roy’s expressions—it’s… disconcerting.  What else has he picked up on?  How is he planning to use it to his advantage?

No, wait.  This isn’t Hakuro; this is _Ed_.  Ed doesn’t bother with ulterior motives; Ed’s probably never plotted anything more sinister than pranks on Winry.

In which case, why has Ed watched Roy’s face enough to know its character so well?  He’s a scientist—perhaps it’s just a matter of observing everything he can pan his eyes over.  Perhaps he’s trying to work out the tiny tells of Roy’s emotions so that he’s prepared to gauge Roy’s sincerity at any given moment.  Perhaps…

Perhaps he’s—interested.  Is that even possible?

Well, Roy’s a scientist, too—most people forget that about him, which he’s glad of; his colleagues underestimate the breadth and versatility of his intellect.  He can test this hypothesis easily within the scope of his existing plans, and if the wisp of a theory is wrong, Ed will simply attribute the whole thing to regular Mustang-Brand Weirdness.  He would consider it foolproof, but the word is a trap; the fact of the matter is that he is the cleverest fool he knows.

“Yeah, well,” Ed says.  “You don’t appreciate my _crazy_ -good impression of you, where I do the dramatic snap and the pelvic thrust and the diaphragm voice, so that’s equivalent.”

Roy wonders suddenly if he is either hallucinating or still asleep.  “The—pel—”

“You do this thing with your hips when you’re being all _authoritative_.  And you plant your feet really wide.  You totally did it when you were arguing with Qiang earlier, and the second you turned your back, he gave you this look like you were made of chocolate.”

“ _Me_?” Roy says—and, oh, he shouldn’t, but he can’t _not_ , and he can’t help it— “He looked at you like you didn’t even need to be covered in chocolate to make him consider cannibalism.”

Ed snorts.  “You better go ask Marcoh for a refund; you’re going blind.”  He raps his knuckles on his right forearm.  “Can’t eat this.”

“You must have hit your head yesterday while you were rappelling as though you were half-spider,” Roy says.  “You’re—this is… I’m speaking in confidence, you understand, but it’s true.  You are astoundingly attractive, and you somehow seem to get more arresting every year.  The prospect that a young man like Qiang Yao would waste his attention on someone so much older and so world-wear—”

“You’re not that old,” Ed says.  “Come on, my… Hohenheim was still kicking ass at four-hundred-something.  And you’re still pretty—I dunno, limber.  You can still light shit on fire easy as breathing, and you look pretty good for, what, forty-fi—”

“I’m barely thirty- _one_ , you _cretin_ ,” Roy says.  “And I’ll have you know I’m in _excellent_ sha—”

“There you go, then,” Ed says, cheeks staining, eyes on the trees ahead.  “That’s why he was checkin’ you out like you were gonna vanish if he took his eyes off of you.”

First of all, Roy can’t believe Ed just tricked him— _him_ —into that.

Second, and perhaps even more startling, he can’t believe he didn’t notice.  He thrives on attention.  He _knows_ when people are looking at him—and between the unending scrutiny of the brass waiting for him to stumble and the appeal of his appearance, there’s almost always someone—because he can use it.  It’s a tool and a weapon; rarely is he not performing for an audience.

So can this lapse be explained by the fact that he was perfectly comfortable in the company, and the sense of safety left him less aware?

Or was he so busy watching Ed that everything else just… faded?

“Even by our standards,” Roy says, “I think it’s impressive that we’re arguing about which of us a stranger prefers to look at.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Ed says.  “As long as he wasn’t perving on Al.  ’Cause if he did, I’d castrate him.”

In grudging recognition of the young man’s good taste, Roy decides, in the interests of preserving Qiang’s manhood, not to mention just how far his gaze roamed when Ed’s focus was elsewhere.

Then again, Roy once caught Alphonse winking back.

Roy takes a moment and attempts to evaluate the conversation.  Ed cornered him into saying he wasn’t old; Ed almost complimented him outright in the process.  It’s data, but it isn’t proof, and Roy isn’t going to rely on guesswork.  Not this time—not when it matters.

When he’s taken that moment, he takes a second one to reflect on the way that Ed has transformed his entire thought process.  He’s thinking like a chemist again.

The scientific method doesn’t lie.

By the time Roy hears the gurgling of a good-sized stream, the morning’s settled in, and his left leg is a maelstrom of mutinous hurt.  He considers backing down—gathering more evidence, revising the experiment, waiting, waiting, being _sure_ —but the moment he sees the contours of the clear water, all he can think of is the itch of the filth all over his skin.  Even if the worst-case scenario duly unfolds, he will emerge from this endeavor clean, and at the moment that’s enough to justify the risk.

“We could probably jump over,” Ed is saying.  “Well, I can; I bet you’re too fa—”

“I’m having a bath,” Roy says.  He peels off his sweater, pauses to turn it right-side-out, and drapes it over a sturdy tree branch.  He kneels to unlace his thoroughly mud-caked boots.

“General,” Ed says slowly, “you have finally lost your fucking mind.  Do you know how cold—”

“Have you ever seen gangrene?” Roy asks.

Ed’s eyebrows swoop adorably as he shuts his mouth and shakes his head.

“Let’s keep it that way,” Roy says, unbuttoning his shirt, which he drapes over the branch with the sweater.

Ed starts to avert his eyes and then does a double-take.  “Holy crap, is that the—from when you fried the hell out of that Lust chick?”

Roy has developed a tendency to keep his arm more or less in front of the scar, a habit derived partly from the early period of protecting the tender spot and partly from the ongoing desire to hide it.  He shifts, raises his elbow, and glances at it, not that he doesn’t know what he’ll see.  It’s just so—

“Funny,” Ed says, mouth quirking, eyes half-lidded and trained on the furious snarl of knitted flesh.  “You look so perfect all the time.  This is, like, a really good metaphor or something.”

“I look ‘perfect’?” Roy says slowly.

Ed blinks, and then he seems to realize that he’s staring at Roy’s abdomen at the same time that his statement occurs to him, and the combination leaves him flushing bright red.  “You—you know what I _mean_ , douchebag.”

Inwardly, Roy draws a deep breath.  Outwardly, he flashes his brightest, smoothest, most roguish grin and rolls his shoulders.  “I’m sure I don’t; could you elaborate?”

Somehow Ed’s cheeks go even darker.  “ _You_ —smug son of a—will you just get your ass in the water before those Hua Wei fuckers show up and perforate you some more?”

“I suppose you’re right,” Roy says, unbuckling his belt in as leisurely a fashion as he can manage.  “Perhaps you’d better keep watch.”

A glance up confirms that Ed looks like his face may actually burst into flame.  “Will you shut the fuck up and get the fuck in the stream so you can move on to freezing your dumb fucking ass off… _sir_?”

“Oh, all right.”  Roy steps out of his boots and shimmies out of his trousers.  Ed’s eyes go remarkably wide, and his right hand spasms.  Roy hangs the trousers and then—no way around this, and no way to make it sexy, but he’ll recover—his socks over the branch currently straining under the rest of his outfit.

“Um,” Ed says, slightly faintly, “I… just get in the goddamn water, Mustang.”

“Right away, Major Elric,” Roy says.  By the sound of the frustrated hissing noise, Ed’s turned away, but Roy knows he’ll sneak a look.  They always do.

Just to maximize the opportunities, though, he removes his underwear _slowly_ , adjusts the drape of the fabric after he settles it over the branch, and stretches extravagantly before he starts down the bank to the stream.

When he touches his toe to the water, it takes every iota of his willpower to bite back the gasp that slingshots up his throat.  Ed was right, although Roy will die before he admits it; this water is _frigid_ , and he is almost certainly going to regret submerging himself in it.

But he’s committed now—he clenches his teeth and takes a proper step in; the cold is like _knives_ —and can’t go back.  That just means he’s going to have to make sure the sacrifice is worth it for the gains.  Opportunity cost.  Equivalency.  Fucking _cold_ ; he’s going to back out after all if he doesn’t start this before his better judgment conspires with his nerves and overrules his pride—

The splashing is not terribly dignified, but momentarily he’s waded to the center of the streambed, where the water comes up almost to his hips.  His toes are already numb, but at least the depth is _perfect_.

Ed has clasped his metal hand around a low—a very low—tree branch and is leaning his weight on it, taking care to look unconcerned as he glances over.  “Nice bath so far?”

“Ch-charming,” Roy manages.  The wound in his leg stung when it met the water and then settled to throbbing angrily; he can’t really feel it anymore.

“Maybe hypothermia’s more fun than gangrene,” Ed says.  “You know ducks shit in that water, though, right?  And fish have sex in it.  And—”

Roy braces himself, dips a hand in, and drags it down the other arm; the rivulets slice through the dirt.  “Waterf-f-fowl e-excrement and a-aquatic c-c-coitus are the l-least of my c-concerns—”

“You are something else, Mustang,” Ed says.

He is something exceedingly stupid.

After one more deep breath and a preemptive apology to his nervous system, he quite literally takes the plunge.

There has never been a cold so agonizingly, astonishingly, all-encompassingly cold as the cold jolting through every muscle in his body, and he’s surely reached a critical surface area of goosebumps by now—

He comes up gasping and barely remembers, through the fritzing bewilderment in his brain at just how cold it is _possible_ to be, to toss his head back and hurl shining droplets from his hair.  He angles his chest just a little towards the spectator; runs a hand down his face; arches his spine; flicks his head again so that his sopping bangs draggle into his eyes.  The effect must be phenomenal even though he’s shivering.

It takes another moment to squint through the water dripping all down his face, and then he doesn’t bother holding back a grin.

Ed looks very surprised to see that the tree branch he was holding onto has broken off in his hand.

  


illustrated by the amazing [Bob Fish](bob-fish.livejournal.com/) \- [full art post](http://bob-fish.livejournal.com/86282.html)  


 

* * *

 

Ed was looking at Roy with evident distaste.  Roy let the glaring continue uninterrupted for a full ten seconds to see if an explanation was forthcoming, and then he gave in and prompted.

“Has my torso done something to earn your disapproval, Fullmetal?”

As was his habit, Roy tried to watch everyone at once: Riza remained intent on the map; Alphonse remained intent on the scenery; Qiang glanced over, smiled thinly, swept his gaze down to linger on the seat of Ed’s trousers, and then occupied himself with their route again.

“Maybe,” Ed said.  “It’s always weird seeing you dressed like a real person.”

Quite despite the fact that Roy understood the point about clothing and context, he raised his eyebrows and started in on a slow-build smirk.  “Are members of the military not real people?”

“Careful, Brother,” Alphonse said airily as Ed opened his mouth.  “Technically, that includes you.”

Ed shut his mouth, twisted it into a scowl, and—entirely without warning—reached out with his right hand to pluck at Roy’s pullover, grasping the fabric over the center of his chest.  “Why are you wearing a _sweater_?”

If it had been the other hand, Roy would have been doomed; Ed would have felt the uneven leap-skitter of Roy’s heartbeat and known that he’d just very nearly committed manslaughter by sending his commanding officer into cardiac arrest.

Roy was also lucky that it had become a hobby of his to respond to Ed’s semi-rhetorical questions with further semi-rhetorical questions to see how long he could keep the conversation lilting towards nonsense.  And that game was easy even when he was reeling—fighting the urge to clench his fists, to gasp for breath, to stare into Ed’s dandelion eyes.

“Is there something wrong with my sweater?” he asked.

“Is this _wool_?” Ed asked.

“Are you involved in some sort of sheep sympathizing movement that prohibits the wearing of wool garments?”

Ed blinked.  “What?  Fuck, no; I hate sheep; they’re assholes.  I was just hoping there was an explanation other than that my C.O. is dumb enough to wear _wool_ on a _hike_.”

Roy blinked back.  Ed’s silver index finger was still hooked in the fabric.  “It’s winter.  It’s cold.”

“We’re going on a _hike_ ,” Ed said again, much more slowly, tugging now.  “A trek.  A pilgrimage.  What-the-fuck-ever.  Is one of the perks of promotion to general that you stop sweating or something?”

“Maybe you should try accepting a promotion one of these years,” Roy said.  “All sorts of mysteries would be revealed.”

Ed released the sweater, swiveled on his heel, and stalked over to look at the map.  “Bull _shit_.”

Quietly Roy began to draw in a deep breath, only to notice halfway through that Alphonse was watching him in great amusement, which made him choke on it.

“So where the fuck are we going?” Ed was asking.  “And how the fuck are we getting there?”

“I have not actually been to the Shrine of Yashui before,” Qiang said contentedly, shifting closer to Ed’s side under the guise of sharing the map.  “So we can find our way together, hm?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Ed said, gaze glued to the rather unhelpful triangles representing the terrain, and Roy’s several-times-damned heart sang.  “Look, I’m not leading this thing; you and the captain can figure it out.”

“Not the general?” Qiang asked with a tone of innocence that grated on Roy’s ears a bit.

“The _general_ ,” Roy said, “is delegating.”

The general knew East City and Central inside-out and sideways but had a tendency to become fantastically disoriented in unfamiliar locales.  The general had been known, according to one distressingly insubordinate second lieutenant back home, to “get lost in a paper cup”.  The general elected not to mention any of these points; and in addition the general thought it was in his best interests to cease referring to himself in the third person.

“The general still thinks this is a vacation,” Ed said.

One of these days, Roy was going to go on a real vacation—to a beach.  To a beach with powder-fine sand and radiating sunlight and the hushed roar of the waves and lots and lots of gorgeous women strutting around in bikinis.

“I believe,” Alphonse said calmly as Roy eyed Ed and Ed eyed him right back, “that we’re on the correct trail and need to follow the rightmost fork after it curves and we lose sight of the city.”

“I think that’s correct,” Riza said.

Qiang grinned broadly.  “Is this the thing you call democracy?”

“No,” Alphonse said, starting briskly up the path, “this is just regular old indecisiveness.  I’m going now; the rest of you are welcome to follow me if you ever want to get there.”

Ed was at his brother’s elbow like there were magnets between them.  “Take it easy, Al—we’ve got the whole day.”

“Not anymore, we don’t,” Alphonse said.

 

* * *

 

Roy always thought temptation should be red, or perhaps a smoky-edged wine-purple.  But of course—of course—temptation is bright gold.

Roy could win him.  Ed’s looking; he’s receptive; there is a _hunger_ darting at the corners of his eyes that makes Roy’s stomach clench and heat and roil.  Roy could win him, take him, have him, keep him for as long as the illusion stood.  Roy could hold him nightly and kiss him awake; Roy could learn every line of his body with fingertips and teeth and tongue; Roy could pull him closer and closer and always leave him wanting more; Roy could bury the past in the hot, wet, perfect places where their skin met.  And when he felt it fading, he could go so cold that Ed recoiled in horror, and they’d both let go before it fell apart.

That’s a lie.

He wouldn’t be able to stop when Ed eventually found him out.  That’s why he can’t risk starting.  The first and foremost lesson in tactical strategy is never to enter a situation from which you can’t retreat.

“I’m fucking starving,” Ed mutters.

Roy is still warming up after his little leap into the stream.  Ed transmuted him a truly nightmarish towel out of pine needles, and he lit a rather nice fire, but the freeze was in his bones by then, and it’s taking its sweet time filtering back out.

He clears his throat.  “Would you like to take a break to hunt and kill some adorable forest creatures?”

“Dick.  Maybe.  Not much meat on a squirrel.”

“I imagine not.”

“What we need is a quail or some shit.”

“I’m not sure what kind of birds are native.”

“I’m just gonna start trying berries at random in a minute.”

“No, you are not.”

“Do you think they’re still after us?”

That’s the question that’s been preoccupying Roy’s brain when it can pry its greedy imagination away from Ed.  “Difficult to say.  I don’t know that they actually recognized our value as hostages, and I’m not sure how long they’ll pursue us based solely on the principle of the thing.”

Ed nibbles on his bottom lip.  Roy’s mouth waters.  “You don’t think I killed any of ’em, do you?  I mean, they could starve to death, eventually.”

“You didn’t kill anyone,” Roy says, folding his arms a little tighter across his chest, which is much more dignified than hugging himself outright.  “On neither occasion did you put them into a position they couldn’t get out of if they really wanted to.”

“I just—I mean, Kimblee kicked my ass in Baschool because I had the chance to kill him, and I didn’t.  But—well, that’s the military, right?  That’s what you have to do, sometimes; you have to—end people’s lives, period, go to the Gate, no take-backs.  So—maybe Kimblee wasn’t right that it was _weak_ , you know, but—but it was _childish_.  I’ve been in denial since I started, really.  I’ve been trying to act like something I’m not.  I’m not a soldier.  I shouldn’t get the benefits of being one.”

“First of all,” Roy says, “Kimblee was a sociopath.  Second, one can be both a soldier and a pacifist.  Third, there is nothing _childish_ about refusing to value your own existence above that of another human being.”

“Okay,” Ed says slowly, “but he made a pretty convincing argument when he brought the whole building down and got me impaled.”

Roy stops walking.  “He _what_?  You—”

Ed pauses to hike his shirt up, and the wealth of taut muscle makes Roy’s heart jump into the back of his throat, silencing him rather effectively.  “See?”

Roy sees.  Another story, another scar—Ed’s skin is a book of tales, and Roy is _burning_ to memorize it word by word.

“Kind of matches yours,” Ed says, dragging his shirt back down, which is a bit disappointing.  “Boy, that was a shitty day.  But for your future reference, it’s possible to use your own soul as a tiny Philosopher’s Stone if you’re gonna be fucked otherwise.”  He sees the way Roy’s staring.  “What?  I mean, it hacked, I dunno, maybe half a decade off of my natural lifespan, but that’s better than not having a lifespan at all.”

“It’s not that,” Roy says.  “Well—that’s terrifying, and honestly it’s sort of painful on a very deep level that you’ve had to make decisions like that, but—you’re… unbelievable, Edward.  You are unbelievable.”

Ed goes still, shoulders squared, head tilted, and his eyes flare with something like suspicion.  “Well, don’t worry about it; I’m gonna be out of the military as soon as my contract’s up, so me dying young won’t affect your epic long-term ascendancy plans.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Roy says, because he is simply too tired and too cold and too beaten-down to lie.  It makes him feel _light_ , acknowledging the truth aloud.  “You are amazing.  That’s all.  No hidden meaning, no snarky-bastard faces.  Just my honest opinion of your character.  You are brilliant and committed and braver than I can ever hope to be.”

Ed’s eyes narrow.

Light indeed; his heart was a balloon swelling against the confines of his ribcage, but now Ed is stabbing it with a fistful of needles, and it’s shrinking back to size.

“I know you don’t trust me,” Roy says.  “That’s fine.  I can hardly blame you, after all the times I’ve looked you in the eye and lied.”  They bandaged his leg while he was attempting to dry off; the cold numbness is finally receding enough to distinguish the dully-throbbing pain again as he breaks Ed’s gaze and starts off down the trail.  “But I mean that.  I admire you.”

“I do trust you,” Ed says, and Roy’s feet stop without his permission.  Apparently his whole body thinks they’re in one of those terrible films he always sleeps through, where the romantic leads invariably spend a several-minute scene trying to walk away from each other only to cast dozens of soulful backwards glances as they go.  “It’s… weird.  You’re always weird, so that’s no surprise—but then that’s part of the thing.  Because—there’s Mustang, right, and he’s the one who lies and schemes and folds his hands on his desk and smirks over them.  But then there’s… Roy, I guess, and he’s _weird_ , and kind of dumb, and kind of _nice_ , and funny if you’re sort of sick on the inside, which I guess I have been for years.  So I kind of—I kind of like Roy.  And I believe him even when he says shit like that, because I’m pretty sure _he_ believes it.”

Roy swallows.  “You make it sound like I have a split personality.”

“I think everybody kind of does,” Ed says.  “It’s just that you’re playing such a huge game with your Mustang side that the Roy part gets shoved into a corner and starved.”

Roy swallows again.  He has to say something.  Doesn’t he?

Ed takes a breath, sucks on his bottom lip for a moment, and pins Roy with the sheer intensity of his attention.  “I think the problem is that _you_ don’t like Roy very much, so you think nobody else will either.”  He shrugs, just slightly lopsided.  “But—y’know.  Captain Hawkeye’s obviously seen through you for years, and she wouldn’t put up with all of your shit unless the _real_ Roy was somebody worth believing in.  And Mustang pisses me off, but I think Roy is kind of… cool.  And since apparently I’m amazing, you should take my word for it.”

Roy clears his throat.  “I’m not sure you know… him… well enough to judge.”

“It’s negative space,” Ed says.  “Mustang and I are damn well-acquainted, and Roy’s the stuff Mustang is conspicuously not.  Easy.  Look, dumbass, just take the compliment.”

Which part of that bewildering rant…?  “I—thank you?”

“Anytime,” Ed says.  “Come on, now I’m _really_ starving.  When we get back to the capital, I’m eating Ling.”

Fortunately it’s not too great a struggle to keep pace with Ed even when he and his shorter stride have a head start.  “Any particular reason?”

“Because this whole damn thing is his fault,” Ed says, “obviously.”

“I thought it was my fault.”

“Okay, I’ll eat you.  Happy?”

“Disconcerted, actually.”

“Damn violet.”

“Did you know violets are also called Flame Flowers?”

“That’s definitely not going to convince me to _stop_ calling you that.”

Roy almost— _almost_ —tells him that another folk name for the _Viola tricolor_ is ‘Jump Up and Kiss Me’.

 

* * *

 

Once it had been firmly established that Alphonse was not about to drop to the dusty trail from exertion, Ed fell back to where Roy was loitering at the rear of the group.

“I’m coming up with alternative explanations for your sweater,” he said.

“I didn’t realize it was such a hot-button issue,” Roy said.

Ed wrinkled his nose.  “Don’t do that.”

“What, weave in a pun?”

“Stop.”

“I’m sorry,” Roy said.  “I’ll sleeve it be.”

“ _General_.”

“I can see it’s knit to your tastes.”

“I am going to push you off this fucking mountain.”

“What were you going to tell me at first?” Roy asked.  “I’m afraid I’ve lost the thread of the conversation.”

“Never fucking mind,” Ed said.

They walked in silence for a moment, companionably enough.  Ed was show-fuming; he wanted to hit Roy but wouldn’t have throttled him given a chance.  Roy was quite fluent in Ed’s rages by now.

“Maybe you’re trying to impress someone,” Ed said.

“I’m sorry?”

“With the stupid sweater,” Ed said.  “Maybe you’re trying to look nice for somebody in particular.”

“Is it a crime to enjoy looking presentable for its own sake?” Roy asked.  He glanced over at the white shirt and very fitted waistcoat Ed had on—the shirt with its dizzyingly tantalizing open collar, with its terrible peek of collarbones and gleaming scars, with its cruel promise of shoulders and pectorals and breastbone and ribs.  “I could use the same argument against you.”

“Nuh-uh,” Ed said.  “This is just a shirt.  I spilled crappy leaf-juice-not-tea on it, actually.  It’s not like I’m not wearing a _sweater_.  A _sweater_ is premeditated.”

This was one of the strangest and most entertaining conversations Roy had ever had.

“I didn’t realize my sartorial motives were quite so complicated,” he said.

Ed scowled at him, checked to make sure that they’d fallen far enough behind to be out of earshot, and scowled at him a bit more.  “If you’re trying to impress Al, give it up.”

“Much as I value Alphonse’s very discerning opinion,” Roy said, “I assure you that his approval is not the reason I put a sweater on this morning.”

Ed eyed him a bit more mistrustfully.  “That’s what they all say.”

And Roy… laughed.  He laughed like his past was empty, and his heart was full.

How could he possibly be blamed for loving someone who made him feel like _that_?

 

* * *

 

“Still no ambush,” Ed says when they’ve settled for the night.  A great deal of running about in the undergrowth on Ed’s part had turned up something like a pheasant; he wrung its neck and plucked it without batting a surprisingly thick, dark, alluring eyelash.  Roy choked down as much as he could, and the universe has rewarded his tenacity by permitting him to lie here watching the firelight play on Ed’s face.  “Honestly, it’s kinda starting to make me nervous.”

“‘Wary’,” Roy says.  “Not ‘nervous’.  Nervous is for violets like me.”

Ed makes a face and then wriggles, resettling his folded arms behind his head.  Roy can’t imagine the steel one makes for much of a pillow—which is not to say he wouldn’t snuggle with it like a child given half a chance.

“Whatever,” Ed says.  “I’d say we should keep watch, but I’m just too fucking tired.”

“I’m a light sleeper,” Roy says.

“Oh, like _hell_.  You snore.”

“So do you.”

“No fucking way!”

“Ask Alphonse.”

“He’ll beat the crap out of you for slandering me.”

“We’ll see,” Roy says.  “In any case, rest—literally rest—assured that an assault would wake me, and all I need then is an ember.”

“You’re not allowed to fry anyone,” Ed says, yawning cavernously.  “Defensive stuff only.  Damn it, this _sucks_.  How much further do you think we’ve got?”

“I don’t know,” Roy says.  “I’m surprised we haven’t come across anything inhabited; we could get directions.  I suppose our only option is to persevere.”

Ed sighs.  “Guess so.”  He levers himself up and stretches—back arching, arms curling, every line of him taut and exquisite.  “Okay, I’m gonna go make our cave-thing before I pass out.  C’mon and help me, General Violet.”

“You did it fine on your own last night,” Roy says, closing his eyes and settling his hands on his chest.  “A general of the Amestrian military can hardly be expected to engage in menial construction labo— _hup_.”

Ed is sitting on his stomach.

 _Ed_ is _sitting_ on his _stomach_.

Roy scrabbles a little, automatically, shifting his arms back against the ground for leverage.  Ed’s legs are spread, knees bent; he leans forward and plants both palms on Roy’s chest, vicious grin lighting up his tiger eyes.  Roy cannot, cannot, _must not_ think about the tight, smooth, round, compellingly gropeable ass pressed to his abdomen—he _must not_.

“C’mon,” Ed says.  “We need to master this joint alchemy thing so we can patent it and make a shit-ton of money for your democratic government campaign.”

It’s a very good thing Ed isn’t sitting any lower.  Roy needs to say something.  First, though, Roy needs to remember how to breathe.  The firelight darts through Ed’s hair, flinging sharp, dark shadows across his face.

“Ed,” Roy says, and of course the wheeze to his voice is _only_ because Ed’s not-inconsiderable weight has landed on his diaphragm, “I can’t do much of anything in this position.”

Well—not anything appropriate.

_Not thinking about—_

“Obviously not,” Ed says, tilting his head back just a little—just enough that his bangs slip into his eyes, just enough that the firelight dances on his cheekbones and kisses the curve of his jaw—and then springing off, bouncing to his feet.  “ _C’mon_ , I said.”

“I heard you the first half-dozen times,” Roy says.  He lies still for another moment, draws in a deep breath, thinks intently about Grumman in drag, exhales, and clambers upright.  His pulse is still pounding in his throat, and his skin is still prickling with heat, but he’s not in any _prominent_ discomfort, and that’s about as much as he can hope for right now.

Fortunately, Ed’s too busy scuffing his boots around in the pine needles to pay Roy’s physical reactions any heed.

“Okay,” Ed says.  “Here should be good.”  He flumps down, sits cross-legged, raises his hands with his palms out, and looks up at Roy expectantly.

It really is a _wretched_ pity that firelight looks so romantic.  Roy doesn’t care what happens now; he could stare at Ed all night like this.  It chases all of the repartee straight out of his brain, which leaves him settling wordlessly within arm’s length.  If he’s very lucky, the inconsistent light will not betray him and let Ed read everything in his eyes.

“Are we collaborating on the alchemy itself?” Roy asks.  “I imagine that’s very different from just pooling our resources like before.”

“It’s fine,” Ed says.  “You’re not totally brainless; you’ll figure it out as we go.”

It must be rather extraordinary to face the world—at least the world of science—completely confident that you will always understand it.  “But what array—”

“It’s _fine_ ,” Ed says.  “Trust me.  Worst-case scenario, we build two separate things, and they meet in the middle, and we’ve got a shelter that looks like crap but still keeps the rain out.”

“That’s very philosophical of you,” Roy says.

Ed glares a bit and wriggles his fingers meaningfully.

Roy doesn’t want to meet his hands; he wants to _take_ them, hold them, shift the pad of his thumb over the knuckles of the left, press it into the grooves and valleys of the right.  He wants to internalize every specification—the length of every finger, the bend of every joint, where the warm palm’s thickest, where the automail’s been scratched too deeply to repair.  He wants to lathe the almost-dainty, softly-calloused flesh fingers with a gentle tongue, eyes closed, feeling the tendons twitch in the wrist, basking in the faint, half-stifled sounds of startled desire.  He wants to wake early and crack an eye open and watch past the edge of the pillow as Ed tugs on a pair of gloves, knowing that he can pull them off with his teeth later that night.  He wants those hands on his face, in his hair, skating down his sides, clasping at his hips, grazing brushing squeezing stroking—

“General,” Ed says slowly, “are you feeling okay?”

“Never better,” Roy says, and he flattens his hands against Ed’s before the little brat can get a word in edgewise.

The lightning surges through his veins the instant they touch—white-hot, crackling _power_ pouring into his body, tingling under his skin.  It snaps and twists in him like a thing alive; this— _this_ —is what happens when their essences combine.

He wants to tear himself away from the harsh glow of their joined hands, because he can’t control this, and it can’t be overcome; it is too _much_ , too great; it careens through both of them, around and around and around the circle of their bodies, ferocious and untamed.

He presses his hands harder to Ed’s, meets the boy’s glittering eyes, and thinks intently of _stone_ —stone as substance, stone as servant, stone as subject of his will—

He thinks of caves, of curves, of arches; he thinks of fine straight lines that intersect at perfect angles; thinks of corners; thinks of sigils; thinks of the combination that will make the rock below them scoff at gravity.  Ed’s eyes narrow, and there’s a—nudge.  He hadn’t realized his mind could _flinch_ ; something external is prodding gently at the array that’s slipping out of focus now, changing signs, shifting lines—it wavers as though he’s watching it through water; Ed’s lips part, and his teeth are clenched; his eyebrows cinch inwards towards a frown, and the array solidifies—

“Now,” Ed says, and as one they part their hands and press their palms to the ground.

The whole world rumbles, rocking back and forth beneath them; needles jump, leaves rattle, the hard-packed soil _cracks_ , and the stone arcs above them and slams into place, blocking out the sky.

They’re still staring at each other.  Roy thinks he’s barely blinked.

Ed clears his throat, licks his lips, and grins… nervously?

“Well,” he says.  “That was kind of—sexy.”

Now Roy’s blinking enough to make up for the deficit.

Before he can even begin to decide what to say to that, Ed’s up and examining the structure of their shelter.

“This is pretty solid,” he says, running his flesh fingers along the ceiling and then knocking on the nearest wall with his right hand.  “We’ve got a good thing going here, General.  I expected this to take a lot of practice, but we’re just kickin’ its ass.”

Roy flexes his hands.  He can almost feel the imprint of Ed’s against them.  “It’s… remarkable.”

“It’s funny,” Ed says, dusting his hands off on his trousers and stepping outside to kick the edges of their fire pit back into shape.  “We make a pretty good team.”

“It’s mostly you,” Roy says, and he should really get a medal for his modesty.

“What part of the word ‘team’ don’t you understand?” Ed asks.

“Are two people technically enough for a team?” Roy asks.

“ _Partnership_ ,” Ed says.  “ _Union_.”  Roy’s heart executes a terrible, squishing flip.  “Whatever.  Fuck you.  I’m goin’ to sleep.  See?”  He transmutes two of his abominable (and tragically necessary) pine-needle blankets, tosses one at Roy, and drops down onto the ground to pull the other up to his shoulder.  “Asleep now.  So you shut up.”

“Goodnight,” Roy says.

“I told you to shut up.”

“Sleep tight.”

“Damn it—”

“Sweet dreams.”

“Bastard.”

 

* * *

 

Apparently Ed didn’t like the sweet little Xingese peas that had been packed into their lunch, because he spent the duration of the break pitching them at Roy’s forehead.  His accuracy and Roy’s reflexes were fairly evenly-matched.

“This is equivalent,” the extraordinarily mature officer of the Amestrian military said when Alphonse eventually heaved a sigh.  “He wouldn’t quit punning at me earlier.  This is _necessary_.  I need to beat the habit out of him.”

“You’re wasting food, Brother,” Alphonse said.  “Are you ill?”

“ _No_ , I’m _pissed_.”

“His behavior really is quite distressing,” Roy said.  “Alphonse, how can I appease him?”

He barely dodged the rock in time.

 

* * *

 

He wakes with a harsh breath lodged in his throat—with his heart racing and his head spinning, and the dark’s too heavy; he’s going to _drown_ —

And when he sinks through the ground, he’ll fall into an ocean of eyes—blood-red and shot with veins, perfectly round and sticky with their own fluids, pried loose and left there, with no eyelids for blinking, waiting just to _watch_ him—

Just a dream.  Just a dream.  Just the truth twisted up and regurgitated by his unconscious brain.  Just—

He startles, hard, and tries to scrabble away from the touch; his heart’s straining against his ribs, his whole body’s started shaking—

“Re _lax_ ,” Ed whispers, and his little warm hand settles on Roy’s waist.  “Jeez, you were thrashing like a motherfucker.”

“I’m fine,” Roy says.  “It was just—I’m sorry I woke you; it was just—”

“Hey,” Ed says, and dirt and needles scrape, and then the warmth of his body is nestling in against Roy’s back.  “You think I don’t know a nightmare when I see one?  I bet you’ve got some good shit locked up.”  His hand shifts, fumbles, spreads over Roy’s thudding heart.  “You lock it up here.  And then your head tears it all out and throws it in your face.  I know the drill.  It’s okay.”  He curls a little closer, pressing his forehead between Roy’s shoulder-blades; when he speaks, the sound resonates straight down Roy’s spine.  “It’s okay.  I’ve got you.  Just go back to sleep.”

It’s funny and a little bit stupid that this is all Roy really wants.

It’s even funnier and definitely stupid that he’s taking orders from Ed.

When he let himself fantasize, he’d always sort of assumed it would be the other way around—he’d comfort Ed, murmur rational nothings, run a hand slowly through his hair.  He should have known it would be backwards with Ed.  He should have known that Ed would turn his predictions upside-down and shake them to see if they had anything interesting in their pockets.  He should have known it would be like this, with Ed’s tightly-muscled arm snug across his chest, Ed’s breath soft and humid against his back, Ed’s automail cool between them, Ed’s body fitted to his like they were designed to lie together.

“You’re amazing,” he murmurs.

“I said _sleep_ ,” Ed mutters back.

“Yes, sir.”

“Shut up.  If you’re even capable.”

“You’re surprisingly cozy given your tendencies towards excessive violence.”

“ _Shut up_.”

“If you insist,” Roy says.  “Goodnight, Edward.”

“G’night, Roy.  You dumbass.”

And Roy feels so _safe_ that he can’t believe that the emotion fits inside him.

 

* * *

 

“Al’s right,” Ed said.

They had paused at a fork in the paths; both options appeared to lead further up into the gray craggy mountains, and Alphonse and Qiang were pointing different ways.  Ed and Roy had fallen far enough behind in the throes of their invigorating bickering that the argument over the route was well underway by the time they approached.  Riza was standing between the two young men, holding the map and looking rather bored.

“You can tell by the register of his voice,” Ed said, “and the way he’s holding his shoulders.  They tightened up a little bit, see?  He used to make this scraping sound when he did that; there were two plates that overlapped.  Anyway, he’s a hundred percent positive that he’s right, but Ling’s lapdog over there won’t listen, and he’s starting to get annoyed.”

“Only starting?” Roy asked.  “If it was you, I think Qiang might already be in pieces.  You’re a bit sh—”

“I am not fucking _short-tempered_ , you bastardly piece of _shit_ ,” Ed said—quite calmly, actually; the words were ferocious, but his tone was almost idle.  “Next chance I get, I’m alchemically turning all your hair gray.  And then it’s gonna fall out.  And then you’re gonna look even more hilarious.”

“I’ve been told I’m a reliable source of amusement,” Roy said.  “This articulation is new, but I think I’ll take it as a compliment.”

“You’re losing it,” Ed said.

“I think it’s the caffeine imbalance in my bloodstream,” Roy said.  He considered Alphonse’s increasingly agitated gesticulation, Qiang’s bright grin, and Riza’s hand inching towards the nearest holster.  “If Alphonse is right,” he said, “shall we just proceed the way he’s directing?”

Ed glanced at the route his brother favored.  “What, and leave everybody?”

“We’re not _leaving_ ,” Roy said.  “It’s a head start.  They’ll catch us up when Alphonse’s inimitable logic has prevailed.”

Ed eyed him, waiting for the punchline.  One of these days, he was going to realize that Roy just had a stupid sense of humor.

“Okay,” Ed said slowly.  “Let’s go, then.”

From her unenviable position between a glaring Alphonse and a beaming Qiang, Riza raised an eyebrow at them as they sauntered down the eastward fork of the path.  Roy slipped a hand into his right trouser pocket and smiled sunnily back—he’d left the dummy cigarettes with his luggage, but they’d decided that in most company a lighter was more diplomatic than the gloves.  Riza rolled her eyes in an indulgently permissive sort of way, and with the little metal wheel beneath his thumb and Ed’s ponytail snapping before him, Roy felt bright and full and invincible.

He really ought to have known better, of course.

 

* * *

 

The next time Roy opens his eyes, it’s to the yellow-gray half-light of dawn, and there is a warm wet spot where his clothing is sticking to his back.

Ed’s a drooler.  How romantic.

On further reflection, Roy despairs of the fact that he finds that more cute than disgusting.

If he can just extricate himself from under the heavy arm draped over his waist without waking Ed, they’ll be able to avoid the morning-after conversation—even though it’s not the morning after _much_ , Roy finds that he really doesn’t fancy having the discussion.  He can hear Ed’s voice and see the slanted smile; he doesn’t need to live it.  _So I guess you’re pretty vulnerable after all, huh, Mustang?  Guess you’ve got some shit to work out.  It’s funny, though, ’cause I spent this whole time learning how much you have to give to pay for just a_ body _—a physical form, you know, not even a whole life—and here you are trying to make up the difference with a million murders on your head._

No, he really doesn’t want to start today with that.

He shifts and wriggles cautiously.  Ed snuffles into his shoulder-blade and mumbles, “Al.”

Damn.  It figures that the boy who couldn’t be roused with gunfire when passed out over a book sleeps feather-lightly against Roy’s back.

His _arm_ is far from feather-light, however—rather, it’s a slightly problematic weight against Roy’s side, putting pressure on his ribs.

Carefully he extracts his own arm, narrowly avoids elbowing Ed in the cranium, and very gently starts to shift Ed’s arm downward; if he’s extremely lucky, he’ll manage to slide it all the way off and then backwards to rest on Ed’s own body, and Roy will be unencumbered enough to flee for—

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Ed says blearily when his wrist is on Roy’s hip, such that his hand dangles in a rather suggestive spot.  “Buy me a drink firs’, Mustang.  Nn.  A lot of drinks.”

“Good morning,” Roy says, perhaps a bit stupidly.

“Or whatever,” Ed says.  He yawns, and then he buries his face in Roy’s shoulder-blade and snuggles closer, and Roy thinks that he may be experiencing a major neural malfunction.  “Five more minutes.”

“We really ought to get going,” Roy says, because it won’t be long before Ed feels the way his heart is pounding, the way his skin is heating, the way his muscles are relaxing of their own accord—the way every molecule of his body wants to move closer to Ed.

“Lame,” Ed says.

“But aren’t you excited for the morning’s breakfast of half-burnt rabbit?”

“Yeah, that’s real persuasive.”

Roy swallows, vacillates, and then plays the trump.  “Aren’t you excited to get back to your brother so that he can stop panicking about what might have befallen you?”

Ed groans, and the sound makes Roy’s whole spine go rigid.  “ _Fuck_.  All right, fine, you win, you goddamn bastard; you happy now?”  He sits up, and Roy can hear the tendons popping as he stretches.

“Copacetic,” Roy says.  He levers himself upright, and everything is agony.  “I humbly request that once we have returned to civilization, we never sleep on the ground again.”

“Friggin’ violet,” Ed says.  “Ow.  Okay, maybe you have a point.  Jeez, we better’ve caught something; I’m starving.”

When Roy has finally succeeded in prying his miserable, aching body out of the dirt, he finds Ed crouched and staring morosely at their empty snare.

“I’m sorry, General,” Ed says without looking up.  “I’m just going to have to kill you and eat you.  There’s no way around it.”

“I believe the military regulation is that the lowest-ranking officer present gets eaten first,” Roy says.

“Military ain’t here,” Ed says.  “Law of the jungle presides.”  He stands, making an absent attempt to brush some of the embedded dirt off of his trousers.  “Anything in this forest that doesn’t move fast enough is breakfast.”

Roy gives him a long look, pointedly focusing on his proportionate legs, and then takes off running in spite of the rather predictable pain.

“That’s fast enough!” Ed howls after him.  “You bastard!  Stop!  I said _stop_!”

 

* * *

 

The path was steep enough that they were ascending quickly—but not so steep that they were working up a sweat.

Roy cast a long look at the goosebumps rising on Ed’s forearms as the air thinned and cooled around them.

“Goodness,” he said.  “Don’t you wish you had a premeditated sweater?”

“Fuck you, _sir_ ,” Ed said through clenched teeth.

“Can I keep the sweater on?” Roy asked.

Ed choked.

 

* * *

 

Roy expects Ed to take him up on the playfulness, give chase, run him down, and describe him using several impolite words and phrases.

He does not expect Ed to rocket after him, tear the ground up to make an arcing bridge with alchemy, race along it, hurl himself down, fling both arms around Roy’s waist, and tackle him to the pine needles.

Roy is too winded to do much more than wheeze forlornly and stare up at him in shock.

“So there,” Ed pants, grinning down at him, hair hanging all around his face.

Roy scrapes up the breath for a few words: “Even when I am Führer of Amestris, you will still be the undisputed king of the jungle.  That said, if you’ve broken anything, the medical bill is coming out of your research budget.”

“You’re not _that_ fragile,” Ed says.  He has his hands planted on Roy’s shoulders, one warm heel and one cold one digging in just under Roy’s collarbones.  Ed’s knees are settled on either side of Roy’s hips, and Roy is precipitously losing the presence of mind to retort.  Ed’s right knee nudges inward.  “Boy.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this…”

“Unkempt?” Roy asks.  Six inches stand between the tips of their noses; Ed’s hands haven’t moved a fraction; Ed’s hair is almost brushing at his face; Ed’s gaze rakes slowly over his battered skin.

“I was going to say ‘dirty’,” Ed says.

Roy makes a strong effort but cannot stop the blood from rushing to his cheeks.  “I—see.”

Ed’s grin tilts, sharpens, gleams.  “Do you feel dirty?”

“Edward,” Roy says slowly.

“It suits you,” Ed says.  Five inches between their noses; four— “Makes you look… real.  Tangible.”

Three.  Two.  One and a half.

“Fullmetal,” Roy says.

Ed drops his ass onto Roy’s groin, and Roy’s breath leaps out of his lungs in a gasp as his hands jump to Ed’s hips—to steady him or to hold him there or to push him back Roy doesn’t even know—

And Ed kisses him open-mouthed, and oh, _oh_ , there is nothing else in the world like this.

It’s all teeth and tongue and grit and pine needles jabbing at the back of Roy’s neck, and it’s not the best kiss of Roy’s life.  It’s not the deftest; it’s not the finest; it’s certainly not the cleanest.

It is the most anticipated, the most passionate, and the most destructive.  It is damp and desperate and _hungry_ , and it imparts a moment where Roy actually thinks Ed was serious about eating him, because there is no other reason a human being would bite his lip quite so avidly; the blood burns metallic in his mouth, and a distant part of him wonders why he _likes_ this.

But of course it’s all backwards with Ed.

And of course it’s only now, only when it’s concrete, only when their tongues are meeting that Roy understands the enormity of his mistake.

He was never free to offer this.  He should never have teased; he never should have encouraged; he should never even have _acknowledged_ —

He never should have let it come this far.  He certainly shouldn’t be letting it go _further_ —

He can’t help himself.

He gives in for a little while—he rises into it, nips back, licks and sucks and steals Ed’s breath for his for a _little_ while—before he summons all of his willpower, grasps Ed’s jaw as gently as he can manage, and leverages them apart.

“We can’t,” he says.  “You _know_ I want to, but we _can’t_.”

Ed’s face falls, and Roy’s heart plummets.  “But—”

“Fraternization,” Roy says.  “Nepotism.  Nooses of red tape, Ed.”

“But you’ve—the secretaries—”

“They don’t report to me,” Roy says.  “It’s different.”

“It’s _not_ differe—”

“A direct superior officer has _so_ much power to abuse.”

“But you wouldn’t,” Ed says.

“The rules weren’t made for me,” Roy says.  “That doesn’t mean I don’t have to respect them.”

Ed’s eyes are too full, too warm, too lovely altogether.  “But you wouldn’t _do_ that.  You never would.  Even if it was somebody who dumped you in public with a ton of drama and made you feel like shit, even if it was somebody you _hated_ , you wouldn’t.”

Roy swallows, runs the pad of his thumb across Ed’s cheekbone, and smiles as convincingly as he can.  “Laws are laws, Ed.  I can bend them to keep you safe, but I can’t break this one unle—”

Ed’s eyes narrow, and his face contorts; he snaps his head out of Roy’s reach.  “Fuck your law, and fuck your military, and fuck _y_ —”

The crossbow bolt _whistles_ as it passes through the three-centimeter gap between Ed’s jaw and Roy’s fingertips.

Ed claps, and there’s a wall of tight-packed dirt muffling the noise of the oncoming force.

“I’m not fucking finished,” Ed says.  “I’m going to kick your ass so hard later you’ll wish that’d hit you.”

“Fine,” Roy says, scrabbling to sit up.  “Come on.”

 

* * *

 

Ed eyed the chains along the cliff face even more mistrustfully than he usually eyed Roy.  Did that count as progress in their relationship?  Was Roy delusional for thinking that they _had_ a relationship?  Obviously they had a _rapport_ , but that wasn’t the same thing at all.

“I don’t think I like this,” Ed said.

“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Roy asked.

“Somewhere I picked,” Ed said, “instead of on some stupid-ass errand for stupid-ass Ling.”

Roy glanced down over the edge—glanced _way_ down—and reprimanded himself for taking such a long look; he was going to make himself lightheaded, which would increase the risk of falling and make him _more_ nervous about the whole escapade.

He almost asked if Ed was acrophobic before remembering the Ed was acro _batic_.  The sky would never betray him; the way he flipped and spun and pinwheeled—the way gravity seemed to make an exception for his weight—the open air clearly wanted him for its own.

“I thought you two were close,” Roy said, despising himself for his pettiness all the while.  He was an idiot; there was nothing available, and even if there had been, he wouldn’t have been allowed to take it.

“Close to homicide, maybe,” Ed said, squaring his shoulders and reaching out his left hand to grasp the chain.  “You’ve never really wanted to smother someone in their sleep until you’ve had Ling kicking you all night.”

  


illustrated by the amazing [Bob Fish](bob-fish.livejournal.com/) \- [full art post](http://bob-fish.livejournal.com/86282.html)  


As Roy curled his fingers tightly around the weathered chain, he spotted a flare of pink in Ed’s cheeks.  “Why, Fullmetal, you’re _blushing_.  Am I to take it that you and the young Emperor were—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Ed said.  “You with your rotating harem of chicks have no idea what we were, and it’s none of your business anyway, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

Ed’s metal hand clinked against the chain as he shifted his grip, stepped sideways, and smoothly moved out onto the boards.  Roy paused before he followed.

“Do you honestly believe I’ve never had feelings for someone?”

Ed huffed out a breath.  “Well—I know you’ve had _pissed-off_ feelings.  And I know you’d die for Captain Hawkeye same way I’d die for Al.  Maybe if you didn’t make your face like a statue all the time, I’d figure you were capable of more.”

“I spent the best years of my life in love with Hughes,” Roy said.  Somehow, _somehow_ , what sort of witchcraft this was he didn’t know, it came out easily—darted up his throat and rolled off his tongue and spread out into the space between them.  “I doubt he ever intended it, but he was the reason I learned how to hide emotions that wouldn’t be advantageous.  I suppose I’ll always wish I could have been the one who _made_ him happy, but in the end I think all that mattered was that he was.  I think he was the happiest man I’ve ever met.  I sometimes think that’s because the only thing _he_ ever hid from the world was his intelligence.”

Ed’s face had gone tight, and he’d lowered his head a little.  He shuffled another step, and the wind pulled insistently at his hair.  “Yeah, I was always—confused—because he seemed like such a dumbass, but he was thinking circles around the rest of us the whole time.  And that’s why—”

“How many of us will be able to die with no regrets?” Roy asked.  “And how many of us will have left as immensely positive an impact as he did?”

Ed smiled faintly.  “I guess so.”  Then he stopped smiling and scowled over at Roy.  “Wait a second, you were—in love—with _him_?  The guy was insane, and he _never_ shut up!”

“Depending on whom you ask,” Roy said, “the same could probably be said of me.”

Ed ducked his head again, reaching out for a new handhold, sliding his boots along the weathered planks.  “Well… whatever.  I wasn’t—in love with Ling.  Or maybe I was.  I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter, because it’s over, and he wasn’t really—there were more important things.  _Everything_ was more important.  And I said I wasn’t going to talk about this, you manipulative _bastard_.”

“My apologies,” Roy said.  “It’s better than thinking about the incalculable distance we would fall to our deaths, isn’t it?”

“You’re sick.”

“Quite possibly.  I’ve been having caffeine withdrawals for so many days now that I can’t really remember what health feels like.”

“That shit’ll kill you,” Ed said.

“Life will kill us both,” Roy said.

“Okay, it’s really _not_ cute to philosophize about that kind of shit when we’re clinging to the side of a fucking mountain.”

Personally, Roy was finding the conversation significantly more treacherous than the task.  “Does that mean that I’m cute normally?”

“What?  No!  For fuck’s sake, you—and, I mean, ‘cute’ would be a ridiculous word for you if I was going to say you were attractive, which I’m not, because _you’re_ not.”

“You’re hurting my feelings,” Roy said.  “My very valid, tender feelings.”

“Smirking a lot always seems to make you feel better.”

“I can’t squander any of my high-quality smirks directing them at a cliff; that would be a terrible waste.”

“Have you always been such a _dork_?”

“I believe I was fairly neutral on the dorkiness scale until I was about six.”

Ed glanced over, and Roy gripped the chain and raised his eyebrows.

“Huh,” Ed said.  “It’s a different side of you, that’s all.”

“I find,” Roy said, “that people are rather like dodecahedrons, and it’s really only after you’ve turned them over in your hands that you understand all of their angles.”

Ed shot him another dubious glance.  “Or you could just _ask_ people instead of getting your grubby hands all over ’em.”

“No one sees themselves from within quite the way that the rest of the world does from the outside,” Roy said.  “If I’d started the discussion saying ‘Ling mentioned that the two of you were together for a good while, and I was wondering how deep it ran,’ you wouldn’t have told me a thing.”

“You’re damn right I wouldn’t’ve,” Ed said.  “Wait, so according to your crappy simile, did you just feel me up?”

Good Lord; Roy was going to fall and die.  “I—that wasn’t—what I meant—”

“ _Sick_ , Mustang,” Ed said, but just before he turned away Roy caught him grinning.

 

* * *

 

Ed claps and slaps his hands down on a root snaking out from one of the nearest trees—the branches of which promptly explode into tiny shards of wood, the rain of which rouses indignant shouts from the Hua Wei.

“You be brilliant this time,” Ed says, voice raised over the rather uproarious ambient noise.  “How should we trap ’em?”

Roy has to focus— _has_ to.  Has to stop thinking about Ed’s mouth, Ed’s tongue, Ed’s eyelashes on his cheek.  Was he always this stupid, or is it a function of age?

Maybe it’s a function of Ed.

He darts a glance past the edge of Ed’s wall to gauge the position of the enemy—and _damn_ the Hua Wei for having the wits to fan out.  He draws a breath, presses his palms together, and flattens them on the ground; his brain fumbles for control of the array for a moment, but then he locks it down.  It’s really only redistribution—snatching the soil out from under the bulk of the Hua Wei party and moving it _up_ to reinforce Ed’s barrier instead.  He peeks out past the wall again, sees flailing limbs, and ducks back just fast enough that three arrows mark the edge of the dirt instead of lodging in his skull.  If those had been guns, he’d be dead.  Bless the damned Hua Wei for their old-fashioned armaments.

“Your turn,” he says to Ed.

He earns a sour look.

And then the wall collapses on them.

 

* * *

 

Roy’s feet had begun to feel extremely large and extremely unsteady on the planks.  The planks themselves had started to feel extremely wobbly, and the chains had started to feel loose.  He knew it was in his head—most of the worst things were.  Maybe if he could produce a brilliant quip about how Ed’s small feet and relative height were an advantage for once, the requisite shouting match would help him forget about the fact that his whole body would splatter on the distant ground like a water balloon if he slipped.

“Well,” he said.  “Your lower center of gravit—”

“I will push you to your death,” Ed said, “and say it was an accident.”

“Captain Hawkeye would see you court-martialed.”

“Nah, she’d just take your job.  And procrastinate on it less.”

“What flagrant insubordination.  _I_ will see you court-martialed.”

“You can’t court-martial me if you’re dead.”

“My restless spirit will return and sit at the end of your bed and wake you once per hour by moving the blankets off of your feet.  And that will be your due every night for the remainder of your life.”

“You’re a special kind of crazy, General.”

“That’s rather rich coming from you, Fullmetal,” Roy said, starting to grin despite himself.  He wasn’t thinking about the fall anymore; that had to count for something.

“I’m not crazy,” Ed said.  “I’m differently sane.”

“Starkers,” Roy said.

Ed snorted.  “You’re the one willingly going into government.”

Roy gave him a long look.  “I’m not even going to try to describe the kind of madness that makes a twelve-year-old enlist in the army.”

“That was strategy,” Ed said.

Over his shoulder—ought to mention that—Roy could see their dizzying route segueing into a path in the mountains proper, winding through the trees.  “Will you take a rain check for my response?”

“Don’t need it,” Ed said.  “Once I figured you out, you got pretty predictable.”

Roy blinked.  “You’ve figured me out, have you?”

“Yup,” Ed said, and then he hopped from the last crumbling-edged plank to the dirt path and started uphill.  “I think we’re almost there.  I can’t wait to get back and punch Ling in the kidney.”

“Diplomacy, Fullmetal,” Roy said.  He swallowed hard, did not look down, planted his left foot on solid ground, shifted his weight, and carefully released his vise grip on the rusted chain.  “We do not sucker-punch our international allies.”

“Except when they really deserve it.”

“Fullmetal.”

“Spoilsport.  Hey, that’s what they should call you—the Spoilsport Alchemist.”

Roy lengthened his stride and started closing the gap between them.  “I’m not a _spoilsport_.”

“The Killjoy Alchemist.  The Party-Pooper Alchemist.  The Stick-Up-His-A—”

“ _Fullmetal_.”

“Hey, is that the shrine thing?”

“‘The shrine thing’,” Roy said faintly—not that Ed would hear, since he was already taking off at a run.

The _shrine thing_ was, Roy had to admit, unequivocally worth the arduous ascent: the wellspring was small but lively, burbling over mossy stones in a tiny waterfall to fill a wide, shallow pool fringed delicately by the trees.  The air was thin and cold and crisp up here, and below them the valley sprawled in violet-grays and greens—the whole hubbub of the capital was reduced to a dark spot tucked into a fold of the land, tiny from this height.

“Humbling,” Roy said.  “Don’t you th—”

“So, what,” Ed said.  “We just have to dab some water on our foreheads, right?  Then we can leave?”

“I believe the word is ‘anoint’,” Roy said.  Ed was clambering all over the rocks, automail blinding beneath the open sky.  Across the pool another dusty path wound down along the other face of the mountain—presumably, Roy thought, Ling had sent them along the most difficult route as a test of their commitment.

“I believe the word is ‘c’mere so I can dab you’,” Ed said.

“That’s… six words.”

“The _Wiseass_ Alchemist, huh?”

“I suppose that’s an improvement.”

Ed snorted.  “Oh, right—useless when wet.  Maybe you should stop showering; doesn’t that make you vulnerable for, like, three hours every day?”

“If only,” Roy said, “mankind had invented some sort of portable fire-starting device—perhaps a stick of wax that could be placed next to the bath to provide lovely, ethereal light.  Or perhaps a more mechanical object; it would be so very efficient for cigarettes.”

He tried, avidly, to think of the cigarettes—to think of Havoc masticating the ends of unlit specimens when he was stressed; to think of the acrid smoke; to think of ash and crumpled butts on the pavement; to think of filtered tar.  He tried, avidly, to think of anything other than Ed stretched out in the bathtub at home, head lolling, eyelids low, with candlelight flickering rosily across his skin.

Ed stuck his tongue out at Roy, which went a long way towards shattering the image.

It was funny that Ed seemed surprised when Roy crossed to the pool, knelt, cupped a handful of spring water, and hurled it directly at Ed’s face.  Surely he understood that immaturity manifested in uncountable forms, and keeping the office shenanigans to a necessary minimum did not in any way preclude mischief of all kinds inside Roy’s head.

In any case, the splash fight was inevitable.  There was a portion of Roy that thought this was extremely unwise—they would be cold on the way back down, for one thing; for another, this was probably more than a bit blasphemous.

The rest of him was too busy laughing to care.  And sometimes—just sometimes—he recognized the importance of prioritizing that.

Predictably, Ed was, if anything, _more_ viciously bloodthirsty in a mock battle.  Roy’s head was submerged in the sacred spring before he’d had a chance to do much more than slap at the surface.  Ed was so strong and so _merciless_ that Roy feared greatly for his dignity, whether or not he knew his life had rarely been safer; a bit of flailing banged his wrist against an automail knee, and from there it was easy to tickle the inside of Ed’s thigh.

It was a pity he was too busy yanking his head out of the water and gulping in deep breaths to focus properly on the wail Ed unleashed, which dissolved into helpless giggles and some fairly dangerous thrashing.  Roy took the opportunity of Ed’s breathless indisposition to bat another spray of water at him, and in the sunlight, it _glimmered_ in his hair—

Off-limits.  Art behind glass.  It was better that way; he couldn’t smear his grimy fingerprints all over it, couldn’t ruin the beauty with a touch, couldn’t breathe poison onto a perfect canvas, couldn’t—

Ed swept his feet out from under him with one perfectly-angled kick, and Roy narrowly avoided slamming his face into the stone.  That would have been attractive, not to mention terribly fun to explain to Riza.

“Ow,” he said, cheek to the dirt instead.

“You deserved it,” Ed said, nudging at him with a toe without getting up.

“I think we’re anointed,” Roy said.  He pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and considered Ed’s blithe, easy sprawl.  “If just a dab would have done the job, I daresay we’re anointed enough to last us several years.”

“Good,” Ed said, stretching, and Roy’s heartstrings _ping_ ed, “’cause I’m never coming all the way up this damn mountain again, but I need the luck.”

“Oh?” Roy asked.

With typical unconcerned grace, Ed swung himself off of the ground to sit upright—bringing his face within inches of Roy’s.

“There’s something,” he said, as Roy’s heart stammered helplessly, “that I was thinking of.”  He grinned, slowly—tentatively?  Was Edward Elric capable of consternation?  “Only I could do with a little bit of luck.”

Roy swallowed, cleared his throat, and swallowed again.  A man could get into an infinite feedback loop this way.  “Precisely… what were you th—”

Ed’s eyes widened, and his head turned so quickly that his ponytail whipped across Roy’s face.

On the other side of the spring stood half a dozen men in robes, one of whom carried a heavy recurve crossbow.

“Are they priests?” Ed muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

Roy’s soul was writhing—to be crawling about in the dirt and leaves, hair soaked from what had _obviously_ been a tussle with a teenager where _holy spring water_ was the weapon of choice, in front of _anyone_ , let alone religious authorities… it was difficult to bear.  If he’d sabotaged this entire venture in a single moment of levity—but it wasn’t Ed’s fault that beneath the clean veneer, Roy Mustang was a _child_ —

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“Fat lot of good you are,” Ed said.  He hopped to his feet like his spine was made of rubber.  “Uh, hi, we—”

There was a harshness to the tone of the leader’s response that had Roy on his feet and edging in front of Ed almost before he knew he’d moved.

“All right, General Diplomat,” Ed said.  “Now’s your chance to shine.”

Roy took a deep breath.

He hadn’t had a chance to release it before there was a crossbow aimed between his eyes.

Well, shit.

“All right,” he said in the lowest, most soothing voice he could muster, “let’s all slow down here, shall we?”  Surely he could calm them at least enough to negotiate.  Surely he could slide his hand into his pocket so slowly that they wouldn’t notice, that they’d stay focused on his face.  “We’re only passing through.  We’re envoys from Amestris; we were summoned by the emperor himself, as it happe—”

He hadn’t recognized any of their words, but evidently they knew those.  Evidently they weren’t fond of them.

“I don’t get how you can suck even when you’re doing something that should be good,” Ed muttered.

“Talent,” Roy said, extending his fingers and touching…

…the bottom of his pocket.  Nothing but fabric and lint.

The lighter had fallen out at some point while he and Ed were tumbling around on the ground like a pair of puppies.

“Oh, God,” Roy said.

Ed tensed; the juncture of his automail shoulder whispered audibly.  “What?”

“Don’t fight,” Roy said.

“Are you fucking kidding m—”

“Keep your _voice_ down.”

“Keep your fucking _head_ down, you useless sack of—”

“Insolent little br—”

“ _Who’s_ little?”

On the upside, their opponents looked rather baffled by the unheralded explosion of the argument.

On the downside, they could not afford to be doing this right now.

On the other downside, the man with the crossbow was leveling it at Roy’s neck—

“Not today,” Ed said, and his right hand swept in front of Roy’s chest, and the crossbow bolt _ping_ ed and ricocheted harmlessly off into the dirt.  “What is these guys’ _probl_ —”

“Down,” Roy said, grasping a fistful of Ed’s shirt and dropping to the ground.  Ed wailed as Roy’s weight brought them both down heavily into the meager shelter offered by the pool’s edge.  “There are too many of—”

“There are not!” Ed said, scrabbling to brace his hands beneath him.  “And all we have to do is hold them off ’til Hawkeye gets h—”

Roy hauled on Ed’s ankle, and the next bolt whizzed past his protrusive antenna hair.  “Do you ever consider that the life you gamble with is the only one you’ve _go_ —”

“Don’t preach at me!”  Ed clapped his hands furiously and slapped them to the rim of rocks around the pool; a spike jutted up on the opposite side and scattered robed men, garnering further shouts of amazement.

Roy clapped and touched the surface, accelerating the molecules into a ferocious torrent of steam—not quite hot enough to scald anyone; this sort of alchemy he’d long since fine-tuned.  “What would Alphonse th—”

“And don’t bring Al into this!”

“Can you please be civil?” Roy asked, and then he ducked as another swift clap from Ed summoned the familiar blade from his arm—significantly closer to Roy’s face than was comfortable.  “That is _not_ civ—”

Ed jumped up and shifted to hurl himself towards the half-dozen adversaries, and Roy caught him by the knapsack.  “ _Damn_ it, Mustang!”

“Diplomatic catastrophe,” Roy said.  “As in, ‘This already is; for the love of _all_ that is beautiful, don’t make it worse’.”

“We’re being _fired on_!”

Roy gritted his teeth, clapping to gust more steam outward in the hopes of buying them the time to talk this out.  “We’re in a very delicate positio—”

“It’s gonna be even more delicate when they _shoot us dead_!”

“Take your shirt off,” Roy said.

…of course _that_ got Ed’s undivided attention.

…at thirty-one, as a decorated general, Roy should not have been flushing.

“To use as a _white flag_ ,” he said.

Ed snarled.  “Use your own!”

Roy’s heart was slamming itself against his ribs in sympathy with the rest of him, which wanted to slam his head against a wall.  “It’d take too long; I’ve g—”

Ed hissed through his bared teeth.  “I _knew_ the sweater was premeditated!”

Why was this happening?  What could Roy possibly have done wrong enough to deserve the last-minute collapse of everything he’d striven for with this assignment?

Ah.  Perhaps this was Equivalent Exchange’s way of telling him not to fall in love with a subordinate fifteen years his junior.

They needed to get out of there, get out of this; he could worry about the rest later; he could do damage-control—first and foremost they needed to get out from under the hail of crossbow bolts before one of them lost a vital body part.

“Hold that thought,” Roy said.  He clapped and touched the ground, concentrating _hard_ to send a ripple through it that would rise into a wave beneath their attackers’ feet.  His heart scrabbled upward into his throat as he risked a glance to watch the bodies fall—they weren’t corpses; they _were not_ , but they looked like—

No time for that.

“Up,” he said, catching Ed’s left arm.  “Tactical retre—”

“We can’t pin ourselves to a _rock face_ ,” Ed said.  “Are you insane?”

The automail skimmed past his stomach as Ed spun—Roy thanked his moody lucky stars; friendly-fire evisceration would have been an awful way to die—and clapped to bring a tree crashing down, but the crossbowman dodged, leapt, charged towards—

“You asshole!” Ed shouted, which didn’t slow him in the slightest; another improvised earthquake did, but only barely; the man was _unstoppable_ —

Roy’s instincts failed him once and for all.  Some part of his brain was trying to reason, and it reasoned that flame alchemy conferred the power for which he was _feared_ , was the power that sustained him, was the power that had always kept him alive, and he needed it right now.  He dropped to his knees on the carpet of needles and started searching for the lighter; it had to be here—

“You dumb _fuck_!” Ed howled, clapping again; the earth rumbled and roiled; the ground split; Roy spared a glance, but it was too—

—late—

—to avoid the silver-tipped bolt that pressed its cold point to his throat.

Past the disinterested expression of the bowman’s face looming over him, Ed looked _livid_.  He was panting, hair in disarray, face hot with the tangled assortment of emotions, and—and Roy really shouldn’t have been thinking what he was given the situation, but he couldn’t help himself.

Funny how helplessness seemed to be the theme of this whole escapade.

One of the robed men who had extracted himself from the downed tree’s branches approached Ed waving a spear, and Roy thought that he would have been better off kicking his heart down a staircase today; the ride would have been less bumpy, and he’d have had less bruises afterward.  The man said… something hostile, and Ed just growled back.

When they started to tie Ed’s hands behind his back—and as he very nearly spit sparks at them in his anger—Roy shifted towards him automatically and received a knee to the jaw for his compassion.  That, he thought vaguely as stars blinked and flashed before his eyes, made a rather efficient metaphor for life, didn’t it?

Well, judging by his behavior today, no one would notice anyway if he’d jarred his brain to the point of injury; apparently he wasn’t using much of it in the first place.

Evidently the crossbowman wanted to make sure: a firm blow from a very solid fist landed squarely on his mouth, and he tasted blood as the dark cinched in and the world tilted drunkenly to one side.

He could already tell this was going to be very unpleasant when he woke up.

 

* * *

 

Of all of the sordid fates in the sordid-fate-filled world, the two Roy has most avidly feared since childhood are drowning and being buried alive.  So far he doesn’t like his taste of the latter.

The dirt is _everywhere_ , and it’s _heavy_ —it doesn’t feel like individual grains; it feels like a blanket made of _lead_ , cold and damp on his skin, heavy on his whole body, suffocating, stifling, _huge_ —

Is this what dying feels like?  Everything closing in, irrevocable, colder, colder, dark—

He is _not_ dying today.  Today, he woke up with Ed’s arm around him; today, Ed kissed _him_ , and then proceeded to demand a better response than ‘no’; he is not concluding today with a pathetically ungraceful demise.

There’s dirt in his nose, in his mouth, in his _lungs_ ; every inch of him is coated and covered and smeared, but he summons all of the resolve that’s made him famous and pushes with both arms.  If he hits something solid, that’s the ground; if it gives, he’s moving skyward—

The whole world is wet and crumbling—

Oh, _air_ —

He gasps in a breath, chokes on the dirt, coughs, and tries to assess the situation through his watering eyes.  There are knives in the dirt—knives with loops, ribbons tied through them; they look quite like the ones May Chang carried, though they’re longer.  The Hua Wei have an alkahestrist, an alkahestrist who brought down the—

Ed.  Where—

Silver fingers like hooks, like question marks, protruding from the mound; arrows hiss past Roy’s ears, but he has no heart left to care; he’s diving, he’s digging, he’s clawing through t—

The steel-tipped bolt slams into his shoulder, and it’s _deep_ —the momentum throws him backwards, tips his whole weight and hurls him along its trajectory, away from the too-small patch of pale skin that he’d uncovered.

The panic disintegrates, and all that remains is _anger_.  This has gone on too long, and the Hua Wei fight like guerrillas, sniping from the trees.  Now they’ve aimed for his throat while he was trying to rescue a comrade.  He needs to get back to Ed.  This is _wrong_.  This is _over_.

Steel fingers glimmer in the dirt, and the flint drags in his pocket.  An arrow misses; he has bet his life on the quickness of his fingers a hundred-thousand times, and this time, like so many others, the gamble pays.

He strikes the flint on Ed’s hand and claps his hands—a tree’s alight; the man perched in it screams, scrabbles; Roy can’t care.

He claps again, snatching a spark from the first fire and channeling it along a dozen narrow lines—all of the bows ignite; the fools made them from wood and twine; they drop them, the skin of their hands bubbling with the heat.

He claps again, slinging the oxygen onward—a ring of flame surges upward around the stragglers; pine needles make excellent kindling, and the red roars high.

And again—the forest floor is a living orange sea, all rippling waves and undulating heat—

There’s something throbbing in his head, and bile is rising in his throat, but there’s no time for that.  He plunges both hands deep into the soil—finds Ed’s head and cups it, finds his shoulder and grips tight.  He pulls.

Ed’s still, so still, too still, but Roy can feel his heartbeat, and Ed wouldn’t go down this easy; he’d step up to the Gate and _refuse_.

Roy shakes him.  Roy strokes his tangled hair off of his forehead, a little too fast, a little too vigorously; it probably hurts; he’s sorry, he’s sorry, he’s—

Ed’s heart is still beating—why won’t he—?

The thick, oily black smoke billows around them, and a part of Roy that’s attached to normalcy by a scrap of thread observes the terrible heat.  A part of him that lives in a cell in the lowest, darkest region of his stomach, which spends its days watching the shadows on the wall and rocking back and forth, pricks its ears and sniffs the air and grins.

Ed’s spine shudders, and he jerks forward in Roy’s arms as he wheezes in a breath so deep it must be bigger than his lungs, a breath so ragged it must tear them open—

His eyelids snap up, and his eyes light, and he writhes against Roy’s grip and pants, hands curling around Roy’s forearms, tightening until bruises bloom.

“Wh—” he chokes out.

Roy wants to kiss him again, pour his own breath into Ed’s chest and hold him safe—

Ed coughs, hacks, turns his head, spits mud, and groans.  His eyes narrow as his gaze fixes on Roy’s shoulder.

“You just—” He spits again.  Sometimes he’s so adorable it hurts.  “—like getting stuck fulla arrows?  Some kind’f masochist, I swe…”  He starts to roll his eyes and stops.

His left hand jumps to Roy’s collar, clenching, dragging—

“Put it _out_ ,” he says.  “No fucking _fire_ , Mustang—”

Roy hikes the unevenly-weighted body up against his chest, which makes Ed yelp; hands freed, he presses his palms together and kills the oxygen in the thick air around them; the flames sink down and dwindle and die.

Their faces are inches apart; Ed fisted both hands in Roy’s shirt.  The soft fingers of the left stumble up the nape of his neck and curl into his hair as Ed looks at the charred chaos around them.

“Well, that was—” He coughs up a little more dirt.  “—craptastic.”

“Agreed,” Roy says.  There’s dirt in Ed’s eyelashes, dirt smeared dark in the sweat on his forehead.

Ed tugs gently at Roy’s hair and then stands, knees quavering just once.  “You—you’re… Holy shit, Roy.”

“I know,” Roy says.

“You _leveled_ —how many of them—you’re—”

“A human weapon,” Roy says.

“You have to get to the top,” Ed says, “so that you don’t have to report to anyone.  Is that it?  Because nobody—because even _you_ can’t control this once you let it out.  And you don’t trust anybody else.  Because nobody should have the power to order you to do this.”

“That’s right,” Roy says.

Corpses around him—lives he cut short to save himself, bodies strewn everywhere, human beings lying where they fell.  He swore this would never happen again.

Ed drops to his knees again in the dirt and looks into Roy’s eyes.  The smoke drifts around him like a halo.

“You’re fucking crazy,” Ed says.  He folds his left hand into a fist and thumps it gently over Roy’s heart.  “I’m in.  I’m in for the long haul.”

“I appreciate that,” Roy says.

“Somebody’s got to kick your ass all the time,” Ed says.  “Somebody’s got to protect people from you, and somebody’s got to protect you from yourself.”

“You keep me honest,” Roy says.

Ed flattens his hand against Roy’s chest, and his eyes _heat_.  “Then it’s in your best damn interests to have me around, isn’t it?”

“That’s…” Roy swallows, grittily.  “That’s a rather convincing point.”

Ed sighs, coughs, and leans forward to drop his head down on Roy’s shoulder, face turned in against his neck.  “Dumbass,” he says.

“That’s starting to sound like a pet name,” Roy says.

“Eew,” Ed says.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, waking a few spare moments later, en route to the tower with his split lip scabbing over and his head pounding like an overzealous construction crew, was one of the single least-pleasant things he’d ever experienced.  So at least he was right about that.

 

* * *

 

“All right,” Roy says softly when he’s counted out a full thirty seconds of holding Ed so tightly that it must be slightly painful.  “Up we go.”  His knees don’t want to support him; his legs don’t want to stand; his arms don’t want to unwind.  There are still a few pine needles smoldering; he should put them out before the whole forest goes up in flames.  Instead he lifts Ed’s awkward-wonderful, uneven weight with him as he forces himself to get to his feet.

Ed coughs and twists both hands into Roy’s sweater a little more.  “Up _you_ go.  Straight to the top.  And then smirking’ll become a mandatory part of the uniform.”

“Something like that,” Roy says.  He hesitates, touches Ed’s hair, starts to count the dead and stops when his stomach lurches hard.

Ed looks grimly at the nearest smoldering form, sighs heavily, presses his lips together, and buries his face in Roy’s chest again, smearing mud everywhere.  The list of things Roy used to dislike that Ed makes attractive is expanding at a staggering rate.

“I’m not letting go until you make me,” Ed says.

Roy takes a deep breath.  “I think you overestimate my strength.”

Ed scowls upward.  “I don’t think you have any idea how fucking _much_ you are.”  He releases one fistful of sweater to prod Roy’s chest, none too gently.  “How fucking _important_ you are, and how much you affect people.  You’re—don’t let this go to your head, okay, dumbass, but you’re a big damn deal.  You _matter_.  A lot.  And—and you matter a lot to _me_.”

“I must be dreaming,” Roy says.  “That sounded like it came from the extended family of a compliment.”

Ed smacks his chest—vigorously, but with the left hand, so at least Roy’s not in any immediate danger of bodily harm.  “Damn it, Roy, I was trying t—”

“I know what you were trying to do,” Roy says, touching his hair, smoothing it back from his face.  “I didn’t mean to be… sardonic.  It’s just that I don’t… feel worthy of praise, or of approval.  Certainly not from you.”

Ed blinks at him.  “Who the fuck are you, and what’ve you done with Colonel Bastard?”

“Brigadier GeneralBastard,” Roy says.

“Oh, good, there he is.”

“You’re principled,” Roy says, “in a way that I have never been and can never hope to be—look _around_ you, Edward.  Being the way you are takes a tremendous amount of courage, which I don’t have.  I don’t think you really understand how much I admire you.”

“Sure,” Ed says.

“You,” Roy says, laying a sooty finger under his chin and tipping his face upward, “are proof that fantastic things come in marginally-smaller-than-average packages.”

Ed pauses.  “Let’s… not say the word ‘package’ until I can use it as a segue.”

And Roy stares at his partner, tongue-tied, flattered, wrong-footed and off-guard, because everything is backwards with Ed.

Backwards has never been so stunning.

Ed’s eyebrows draw together, and his thin smile softens into something thoughtful.  “I mean, I think—I kind of _have_ to think—that a person can do stuff that’s really wrong—” His eyes dart sideways.  “—and still be… _good_ , you know?  Intentions matter—they have to matter.  And humanity is about picking yourself up off the ground every time you go down, which I figure applies to when you _put_ yourself down, too.  You’re really shit about that.  You hold yourself to a different standard than you hold other people, and you’re a much harsher critic when it comes to what _you’ve_ done—or haven’t done, or should’ve done and can’t change now anyway.  And you just can’t live like that, dumbass.  You can’t keep trying to pick up the pieces forever.  At some point you just have to walk away, and it’s where you walk to that makes up the difference.”

“You committed your entire life to recovering Alphonse’s body,” Roy says.  “Isn’t that a similar sort of repentance?”

“Yes and no,” Ed says—which is characteristically helpful.  “That was such a concrete thing.  And it’s done now—it’s just… over.  I still wake up in the morning and… But yours isn’t a task; it’s a _future_.  You see what I mean?  You’ve built your whole world and balanced all of your self-worth on making up for something you’ve _forgiven_ other people for.  You’ve based everything on this endless penitence game.  You’re going to kill yourself trying to live like that.”  His mouth twists, and the corners twitch upward.  “Or worse, you’ll make yourself go gray.”

Roy’s stomach does a strange, unsteady thing; they are standing in a field of ruin he dealt with his own hands, and Ed is opening his heart and rooting through it right here, right now.  “I categorically will _not_.”

Ed grins broadly, reaches up, and smoothes his thumbs through the hair at Roy’s temples.  “You already are.”

“Shush,” Roy says.

“Make me,” Ed says, and that _glint_ in his eye is just—

Roy swallows and hesitates.  “Am I to take it that my options are… firstly, deeming our connection too dangerous and refusing to pursue it, thereby hurting you a great deal, incurring your unending wrath, presumably receiving a metal fist to the face, and having Alphonse sneak crushed insects into my every meal for the rest of my li—”

“Spiders,” Ed says; his voice comes out raspy, and he clears his throat.  “Spiders aren’t insects, and it’d be spiders.  Guarantee it.”

“Ah,” Roy says.  “Of course.  I… secondly, risking everything that both of us have cobbled together in the hopes that you and I will be spectacularly beautiful instead of mutually destructive.”

Ed’s eyes narrow where they’re trained immovably on Roy’s face.

“It’s never going to be easy,” Roy says—helplessly, pleading; when Ed’s face closes off like this it feels like his chest is caving in.  Surely Ed understands.  He has to.  He has to have thought… “It’s never going to be normal.  It’s never going to be free.  We—both want so _much_ , Edward, but I don’t know how to deal with _getting_ what I want, and—and you’re right.  You’re right about all of it, all of the psychology, all of the… I wake up every morning with blood on my hands, Ed.  I wake up every morning, and I am guilty; I am already convicted; and I push past it because I have to survive if I’m ever going to fix a damn thing, but I don’t… I never will.  I’m never going to be all right—not really.”  He spreads his arms to the spread of ash and bodies—some of them writhing, some of them smoking, some of them still.  “I’m never going to be anything other than this.”

Ed’s eyes are hard, and his voice is steady, and his right hand curls slowly in Roy’s sweater front.

“I know that, dumbass,” he says.  “And I’m still here.”

Roy swallows.  His heart beats, once, twice, three times.

“That’s is the point, though, isn’t it?” Ed asks.  “The point is finding somebody who knows everything you’ve done—all the worst shit, all the _terrible_ shit that made you into who you are—and still wants you closer.  I mean, look at us: we’re two torn up, fucked-up, broken sinner-soldiers.  And—and we _get_ that.  We get each other.  We get the ways it messes with your head, and—like, I’m not going to take it personally if I startle you in a dark hallway and almost get my ass incinerated; I _get_ that.  And with this, with the whole Promised Day, with everybody we lost and everything we went through—we dragged our asses through that hell together.  Common suffering.  That _means_ something.  We—grew together, kind of, going through all that shit and being on the same team and _trusting_ each other even though we both know what we are.  You owe it to both of us to give this a chance.”

Roy takes a breath, takes another, breathes in smoke and Ed.  “I am a waste of your time,” he says.  “I will live dreading the day you discover that.”

“You suck,” Ed says, voice curiously devoid of venom.  “You come on like this gallant rake bastard straight out of one of Al’s crappy paperback novels, and then when you’ve got something you actually _want_ in your hands you keep trying to throw it away before you can drop it.”  Ed hits him with the right hand this time—still avoiding his wounded shoulder, but Roy’s not sure how long that mercy will last.  “In a fucking battle, you’re the bravest son of a bitch I have ever seen, but with this you’re a fucking _coward_.”

“Circumspection and cowardice are not the s—”

“Don’t you fucking talk in circles,” Ed says.  “I’ve had about enough of circles in my life.  Give me a goddamn answer, Mustang.”

Roy breathes a few times more, thinking, as he does, what he used to think in Ishval, and after, and always—that as long as he’s breathing, there’s hope.

What would Hughes say?  If Maes Hughes could see him standing here, bruised and bleeding and frankly quite filthy, staring into Edward Elric’s precious-metal eyes, what cavalierly critical advice would he offer?

It’s a stupid rhetorical question.  Roy knows what Hughes would say.  Roy has known it from the beginning.

_Follow your heart, you great, big idiot._

As if it really is that simple—as if it can be, if they try hard enough.

Roy leans forward, leans down, and presses his lips to Ed’s forehead—soot and salt, smooth warmth, sheer fucking perfection.

“Fullmetal,” he says as he draws back, as the beautiful boy’s smoldering eyes scour his face, “I have a top-secret assignment for you that will be carried out almost entirely in private.”

Ed blinks.

Then he grins.

“Smug bastard,” he says.  “That’s more fuckin’ like it.  Assignment _accepted_ , General.”

And it feels like Roy’s blood is kerosene, and Ed’s proximity strikes sparks in his stomach.  It feels like Roy is young and volatile and dangerous and _alive_.

So Roy kisses him.  Hard.

For once, Ed’s _got_ it backwards.  The strong thing, the brave thing, the wise thing to do would be for Roy to _resist_ this—to fight it, to forsake it, to deny himself the towering joy in order to protect the both of them.  This is weakness.  This is giving in.

But _God_ , Roy wouldn’t trade it for all of the power in the universe.

“Okay,” Ed says, breathing lightly as he draws away.  “So—I—” He looks around them, pales a little, stands up straighter, raises his right forearm, and coughs into his sleeve.  “What’s the Xingese funeral tradition like?  I mean, we’re—we’re sort of—halfway between burial and c-cremation right now.  No, wait, Ling said they were taking Fu back so they could…”

For a moment, he’s eleven, twelve, fifteen, hacked at and crushed down and overwhelmed by the knowledge that the list of losses will just keep growing, will always keep growing; that the names will be printed and the headstones engraved; that even if he dances out of the shadow of mortality daily, not everyone he loves will be so lucky.  For a moment, the prospect that, even after everything he’s done, even after the miracles he’s crafted and the magic he’s made, he is ultimately _powerless_ —for a moment, the revelation makes his shoulders drop.  For a moment, the inevitability cuts him to the core.

But then the fire rekindles in his eyes.  Ed’s not much of a soldier, but he’s _always_ been a warrior, and he will fight past his fears until the day that he dies.

“Fuck it,” he says.  He claps, kneels, presses his hands to the extraordinarily tortured ground—the broken wall, the arcing bridge, and the pit Roy made all roil and resolve into a series of neat, evenly rectangular graves.  A faint sheen of sweat stands out on Ed’s forehead by the time he finishes.  What Roy wouldn’t give for that kind of raw, incalculable brilliance; for that kind of command of it; for that kind of _control_ —

“You don’t have to do this,” he says.  “Help me, I mean.  This was my doing.”

“It was self-defense,” Ed says.  “In defense of both of us.”

“All the same—”

“Just shut up,” Ed says, voice catching.

And Roy… is walking the crumbling cliff’s edge of madness, but that’s long since become par for the course.  “Are you sure you want our first date to be burying bodies?”

Ed chokes, but a genuine smile trembles its way onto his lips.  “You’re fucked-up, Roy.  And deaf.  I told you I was in, and I’m in.”

Roy wonders how long he will have to wait to say _I love you more than I can stand most days_.  The last thing he wants to do is to make Ed think he’s being pressured—he knows very well what happens when Ed feels trapped.

He shuts his mouth and cages _I don’t deserve you_ behind his teeth.  Ed’s wrong.  Roy is selfish, needy, sad; Roy will take this if it’s offered, whether or not that’s just.

He crosses to the nearest of the corpses and wedges his hands underneath the torso to raise it off the ground.  Ed takes the ankles; crisped skin peels under Roy’s hands—it flakes off and leaves him with wet muscle, slippery and difficult to grip.  He swallows the urge to gag.  This should not be easy.  This should never be easy.  The day this is easy is the day that he ceases to call himself a human being.

They don’t speak.  Ed looks sick at first, and Roy’s stomach tightens as he watches the color leach from the boy’s face.  But then Ed just looks… tired.  Resigned.  And he’s looking at Roy like he’s waiting for something, and they lift bodies, and Roy finds the entirely quotidian ache in his back very disorienting.  He and the young man he loves are burying his victims, but as far as his spine is concerned it’s quite like another day of sprawling in the chair in his office.  Life is a well of nonsense sometimes.  Most times, perhaps.

A few of the Hua Wei were spared, one way or another.  Roy wasn’t particularly cautious at the time, and he’s too numb now to separate the threads of relief from the strings of weary disappointment.  They’re still dangerous if they’re not dead; more importantly, they’ll carry the weight of their hatred of him off into the world again.  It’s bizarre that even _not_ killing has a cost.

“C’mon,” Ed says, hauling one of the survivors through the dirt to prop him up against a tree, ignoring the wails of pain.  “Walk it off, champ.  Think twice before you attack alchemists next time.”

Roy drags one who’s unconscious but breathing over to lay by his colleague.  It’s remarkable how Ed never seems to run out of energy; Roy feels like his muscles are eroding, his knees are gelatin, his spine is telescoping, and his heart is made of lead.  It warms, though, as he watches Ed gather up that deservedly famous resolve, squaring his shoulders, setting his jaw, shouldering the weight of so much more than a teenager should have to bear.  The lead warms—such a conductive metal, and so very, very soft…

All the same, the adrenaline is fading, and Roy is fast regaining the capacity to think.  Ordinarily that would be a good thing, but in this case—what in the _hell_ are they meant to do?  He has to think of something to say, of the perfect thing to say, of a way to explain this that doesn’t involve the words “I murdered several of your countrymen to protect the young man before you whom I happen to be in love with”, of a way to defuse one of the largest and least stable powder kegs of his extremely explosive career.

If he fails, the consequences… don’t bear contemplation.

He can’t fail.

Ed.  He’ll have to use Ed.  Putting it in so many words even in his head, even with the rather pertinent distraction of a semi-conscious, half-scalded human being in his arms, makes his guts writhe.  He’ll have to use Ed.  That’s nothing new, is it?  It’s a pity Ed’s red coat didn’t have tails; it was only metaphorically that he could ride the fame.  He’s still cashing in the wealth of rewards he gambled both of their lives for—and Alphonse’s, and Riza’s.  Roy built towers on Ed’s foundation: everything Ed touched turned to sharp-edged amber; Roy Mustang would still be an upstart colonel in the East if he hadn’t swaggered into Central City with his arms full of gold.  He bartered with it, traded in it, lined pockets, stopped throats, hammered out stars and fixed them to his own shoulders—and now he’s going to _use_ Ed again.  He always thinks _Just this one last time_ , and usually even he believes it.

Let this be the last one.  Ling thinks Ed can do no wrong, and Roy can twist the words into all the right shapes, stuff up all the cracks with them, polish them to a shine—

He hears the voices before he hears the footsteps—voices speaking in Amestrian.

This encounter misses the top five occasions on which Roy was gladdest to meet Riza’s eyes, but _very_ narrowly.  The list of things he loves about Riza Hawkeye is too long to consider enumerating, but at this particular moment his favorite aspect of her personality is the way she assesses a situation, comprehends it, and immediately takes action.  Riza gets shit _done_ like no one else he’s ever met.  Honestly, she’d make a better Führer than he would.

Than he will.  Than he has to.

She doesn’t give him a hug, which would look unprofessional in front of the contingent of Xingese soldiers at her heels, but she does cross the crunching needles to clutch his arm, which means the same thing.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Ed says loudly.  “I mean—it is, but the reasons are different than you think.  They _kidnapped_ us and then chased us down when we escaped and tried to kill us.  On top of which they shot Roy a bunch of times.”

Riza’s right eyebrow quirks at the usage of his first name.  “I was going to ask, sir—”

“I’m fine,” Roy says, which is a necessary lie to save face in front of the Xingese soldiers, who don’t seem to have made up their minds about the scene before them.  Except perhaps he should have played _up_ the injuries; made it clear his judgment was impaired when he tacked a few more murders onto his list—

Ed has already moved on to looking hopefully at Riza’s pack.  “Did you guys bring food?”

Riza opens the bag, removes two firearms and a case of ammunition, and passes it to him; with that done, she turns back to Roy.  “We’re only a few miles from the capitol now—you led us on quite a sightseeing tour.”

Ed’s mouth is full of some sort of oat bran, which does not even remotely deter him from trying to speak.  “Where’ff Al?”

“The emperor prevailed upon his better judgment,” Riza says, “and convinced him to direct the operation from safety given that his physical condition and his unfamiliarity with the terrain would have made him something of a liability.”

Ed blinks.  He chews, slowly and with a touch of uncertainty.  Crumbs escape his lips, and Roy wants to kiss him, mouth full of oats and all.

“She means,” Roy says at Ed’s enduring bewilderment, “that Ling very nearly had to tie your brother down while convincing him that he would endanger the rescue in order to keep him from rushing out to find you.”

“That’s correct,” Riza says.

Ed swallows his tremendous mouthful and then grins.

Riza turns back to the dozen Xingese soldiers still watching them closely.  “Gentlemen,” she says, “half of you are going to remain here.  The other half will accompany us to the capitol, and then we will escort a priest back to this spot to lay these individuals to rest.  Please choose among yourselves who will belong to each party.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Roy says as he quickly loses the thread of the murmuring in Xingese.

“Of course, sir,” Riza says.  She takes her bag back from Ed and thrusts it at him.  “Now eat something.”

“Yes, Captain,” Roy says.

Ed snickers until Roy shoves another oat bar into the boy’s fat mouth.

 

* * *

 

Roy thinks his feet may never recover from this excursion.  If nothing else, he hopes the Xingese people will take the near destruction of a pair of fairly important appendages as a sign of good faith.  He sacrificed his soles in Xing.  Good ring to that.  He will compose a stirring monologue about heels and toes and fortitude and how it all ties back in to his foreign policy plans.  He will hold them rapt.  He will sock it to them.  He will be a shoe-in for Führer.  They will give an inch, and he will take several feet to replace these uselessly damaged ones he has.

“Just relax, General,” May Chang says.  “It won’t take hold if you keep squirming.”

“I’m sorry,” Roy says.  “I was thinking.”

May gives him a look like he is a stubborn five-year-old with icing on his face, and she’s _extremely_ glad she has her precious prince Alphonse to restore her faith in Amestrians.

Roy attempts to look as dignified as humanly possible when one is sitting in a wicker chair with one’s bare and much-abused feet settled atop a specially-designed alkahestric array.  He’s flattered that May came so far to see them (or at least to see Alphonse) before they left, and he sincerely appreciates that she’s willing to try to heal his various injuries—he does.

It’s just that there is a _great deal_ to think about.  And some of it lends itself to squirming a bit.

No, not to squirming; to… shifting irregularly.  Roy Mustang does not _squirm_.

“Thank you for taking the time to treat me,” Roy says, attempting to resemble a statue.  “I hope this goes without saying, but I would be more than happy to sponsor you if you ever feel inclined to make another trip to Amestris.”

“I know,” May says cheerfully.  “That’s how you and… _Alphonse’s brother_ and other alchemists think, isn’t it?  I helped you, so you owe me, right?”

“It’s that simple in Ed’s mind,” Roy says, “but nowhere else.  Alchemy works in finite quantities; life doesn’t.  I like you, Miss Chang, and I think your presence in Amestris had a positive effect.  My appreciation for your general assistance with our troubles was reinforced by the kindnesses you rendered more specifically to me—that you saved Captain Hawkeye’s life, for instance, is a debt I could never concretely repay if I was operating according to the principles of equivalent exchange.  No one could measure the effects on the world that you facilitated by preventing Riza Hawkeye from dying that day.  And who knows where we would be if you hadn’t been involved in the endeavor to recover Scar’s brothers notes, if you hadn’t helped Alphonse to return Edward’s arm…?  I can’t begin to offer you a quid pro quo reward for all of those things and all of their consequences.  What I can offer you—and what I am offering—is to give you anything within my power should you ever so much as ask.”

May eyes him.  The little panda pops up from _nowhere_ to appear over her shoulder and glare at him as well, which almost sends Roy into cardiac arrest.

“You’re very charming, Mr. Mustang,” May says, “but you’re _way_ too old for me.  I need someone I can start a family with, you know.”

Roy wonders if almost having two heart attacks in ten seconds sets a record in the field of medicine.  “I didn’t mean—well, thank you, but that is not even remotely what I was trying to…” He takes a deep breath and starts over.  “Alphonse is going to help me to arrange an exchange program for Xingese students to attend Central University.  We would be honored if you would consider being one of our scholarship students.”

May’s eyes widen.  The panda makes a quizzical noise.  “You mean… go to university… _with Alphonse_?”

Ed is going to kill him.  He clears his throat.  “In a… sense, ye—”

May leaps to her feet shrieking and hurls her five knives towards his feet.  Roy narrowly evades a third heart attack, but they find their marks on the circumference of the alkahestry circle, and May, still cooing, kneels to touch the lines and light them blue.

“We’re still working out the details, of course,” Roy says in his single smoothest voice.

May doesn’t seem to hear him over the buzz of the alkahestry and her own delighted sighs.

Roy gives up; he’s more interested in the intensity with which his feet are tingling regardless.  The blue snaps and jackknifes like lightning, licking at his toes, at the tendons, swimming around his ankles.  It _zing_ s right down to the hair follicles, hisses through the sore spots, courses up into his veins and throbs—but it’s _cool_ , soft in its mildness, soothing, sweet.

The light recedes, and Roy sucks in a breath.  Tentatively he raises one foot, finds it unmarred; lifts the other, marvels.

“Wow,” he says, slightly stupidly.

They really do need this.  The things hospitals could do with this sort of power…

“Right,” May says.  “The wounds from the crossbow bolts are going to scar—there’s nothing I can do about that, because they’ve already taken shape.  Alkahestry can clean it and knit the skin back over it faster so that you don’t get infected, but they’re not new enough to heal completely.”  She and the panda both look distressed.  “I’m sorry, General Mustang.  They’re going to be kind of… icky.”  She blinks up at him.  “I, um.  Need you to take your shirt off.”  Her voice drops to a whisper.  “Don’t tell Alphonse.”

Roy smiles thinly as he undoes the buttons.  “I won’t breathe a word.  And it’s really all right about the scars—wait ’til you see my prizewinner.”

The panda actually topples off of her shoulder when he flicks his shirt aside.

 

* * *

 

Roy is nursing some tea, burning some incense, and reviewing the section in his Xingese etiquette book on traditions for formal gratitude when the door to his quarters bangs open.

Roy saw the silhouette just before Ed reached for the door handle.  He blows gently on the surface of his tea without looking up—there is little in this world so satisfying as goading Ed to the verge of incandescent rage.

“Okay,” Ed says, “explain to me why May Chang thinks she and Al are gonna be college roommates and have lots of _study parties_ , emphasis definitely not mine.  And explain fuckin’ _fast_.”

Roy sips demurely and then gazes up at Ed from where he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor.  This is an unusual angle for the pair of them, and Roy finds that he likes it.  Ed’s stunning from any side, obviously, but the way his hair frames his face when he slants his glare downward… “I always thought that perhaps I’d missed my true calling as a wedding planner.”

After Ed has been speechless for a full five seconds, Roy sips the tea again and turns the page.

“That was a joke, Fullmetal,” he says.

“You have a lousy fucking sense of humor, Mustang,” Ed says, kicking the door shut and folding his arms.  “What the fuck is May—”

“I didn’t make any promises,” Roy says, “and I said nothing your brother hadn’t given me permission to say.  It’s an idea he and I have been discussing for a while—that’s all.  The rather aggressive young Miss Chang would be one of many students Alphonse would assist and oversee.”

Ed grumbles indistinguishably and flops down on the floor across from Roy—in typical style, when Ed flops down, he does so _thoroughly_ ; he’s sprawled out on his stomach on the floor and looking moodily at the upside-down pages of the book in the time it takes Roy to blink.

“Well?” Ed says.

Roy sets down his tea.  “Well.”

Ed wedges a fingernail under the corner of one of the pages, right arm folded beneath his chest.  His eyes flick up to Roy and then back to the text.  “Look, Mustang, I’m not gonna stand on the other side of your desk and click my heels and pretend like I haven’t seen you naked.  Or like we didn’t fucking snuggle for half the night, or like we haven’t fucking made out a couple times.”

Roy’s heart is pounding in his ears again, a frenetic bass drum beat.  Ed’s eyelashes dip low, and he fingers the edge of the book cover.  Roy finds his voice and tries to tune out the percussion.  “I don’t intend to deny this.”

Ed’s fingers curl.  “Good intentions don’t do much for me nowadays.”

Roy tests his lungs and finds them functional.  “Edward, we…”

Ed’s hand clenches into a fist, and his chin tilts lower; his hair hides his eyes.  “Just don’t fucking hedge with me.  I’m not one of your politicians, and I’m not a kid anymore.”

“I know,” Roy says softly.  “We couldn’t be—public.  Not while you report to me.”

Ed’s voice is low.  “That’d look pretty bad for your campaign, wouldn’t it?”

Roy is nothing if not a masochist.  Even Ed’s bludgeons fall like blessings.  “That’s not what I mean.”

Ed huffs out a breath.  “Oh, yeah.  You’d get court-martialed.  That’d set your procrastinating back a bit.”

It’s starting to sting now, even over the hum of panic held at bay.  “That’s not what I _mean_ , Edward.”

Ed’s head jerks up sharply, and his narrowed eyes fix on Roy like bayonet blades.  “Then what the fuck _do_ you—”

“You deserve better,” Roy says.  “You deserve better than _me_ in the first place, and you damn well deserve better than the half of myself that I can give to you in private.  You have spent your entire life compromising in ways most of us can’t even begin to understand, and I can’t ask you to settle for what little I am behind closed doors.  I can’t ask you to keep yourself a secret again—not now, not when you’re finally free, not when I want the whole fucking world to know I’d die for you.  I want so _much_ of you; I want everything; I don’t trust myself to be able to hold it in.  You have an incredible life ahead of you, and it would be indescribably selfish to ask you to waste any of it on a shadow of a courtship with _me_.”

Ed’s eyes widen, deepen, soften; he bites down on his bottom lip and searches Roy’s face for clues.  Oh, _God_ , is he really waiting for a punchline after _that_?

“I don’t need—courtship,” he says slowly.  “I’m not one of your stupid swooning girls.”

“Courtship isn’t just roses and restaurants, Ed,” Roy says.  “It’s rearranging your life to prioritize another person, and it’s important, because it demonstrates how important that person is to you.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.”

Ed scowls.  “Well—whatever.  It can be ‘important’ without being _necessary_ , okay?  I don’t need all the frills and ribbons and crap; I just want—you, dumbass.”

“I always suspected you were crazy,” Roy says.

“Oh, shut _up_.”  Ed levers his arms up, rests his chin on his left hand, and taps the fingers of the right on the edge of the book.  He watches Roy like he expects the skin to peel away and reveal something terrible.  “I don’t—care if it’s not perfect.  Or if it’s a secret.  Or if it doesn’t… I’m not asking for forever, okay?  And I saved your ass, like, six times in the last week, so it’s equivalent fucking exchange that you shut your giant mouth and let us _try_ , Roy.”

Roy pauses.

“Giant?” he says after a moment of composing his voice.

“Fucking _colossal_ ,” Ed says.  “You could talk for days and not run out of bullsh—”

“Implying that your own is small?” Roy asks.

Ed stares.

Then he attempts to hit Roy’s arm with his metal hand, but he’s laughing so hard he’s having difficulty finding his target.  “I said _shut_ it, you lousy bastard—”

For all of the protests, however, he kisses Roy shamelessly open-mouthed.  Deft automail fingers sweep the book out of the way, but the teacup is not so lucky.  Roy would rue the warm pool spreading on the floor if he wasn’t so preoccupied with absolute elation.

And it’s—he hadn’t been able to savor the first kiss, or the second, but _this_ …

This is no more reservations, no more apprehension, no more holding back.  This is Roy’s whole body thrilling—toes curling, head spinning, spine jolting, heart rattling hard against his ribs.  This is a stockpile of good Xingese firecrackers lit and sparking in his stomach, because Ed _wants_ this—wants _him_ , wants— _knows_ what he wants—oh, _God_ —

This is Ed pushing him back onto his elbows; this is Ed climbing over him, straddling his hips, gripping his shirtfront, whimpering into his mouth.

Roy forces his short-circuiting brain to focus on breathing.  It would be a crying shame to pass out when he’s finally found something that feels so good all of his vital systems have gone haywire.

He pulls back just far enough to drag in a deep breath that smells and tastes like _Ed_ , like sun and sweat and steel; he cracks his eyes open and watches Ed’s eyelids flicker, watches Ed lick his lips, watches Ed arch his back and toss his head to whip his hair out of his face.

The grin starts behind Roy’s breastbone and just _grows_.  It builds, it swells, it bursts and doesn’t dissipate; it’s _warm_.  It’s waves of heat from the fireplace; it’s embers in the night sky as the pyrotechnics bloom.

“I don’t get you,” Ed says, tilting a bright smile back at him, right hand tightening on his collar, left nudging scraped knuckles at his cheek.  “You try so fucking hard to be unhappy sometimes.”

“You used to do the same thing,” Roy says.  He flattens his hand on Ed’s chest, because it’s _there_ , and he _can_.

“Yeah,” Ed says.  “And then I turned sixteen.”

Roy sticks his tongue out at Ed—who stares for a moment and then laughs, surprised and delighted and far, _far_ too beautiful.

Roy curls a hand around the back of his neck and drags him down into another kiss, and then another; he tries to think cold-shower thoughts even as he rises up into Ed’s radiance; he doesn’t want their first chance at normalcy to get out of hand.

Ed draws back a little, grins, and bites his swollen red lip.  Everything in Roy is straining towards him, _wanting_ ; every bone, every muscle, every drop of blood warms to him, craving his touch.

“Path of least resistance,” Ed says.  “You and me, I mean.  You letting yourself be fucking happy about you and me.  ’Cause I’m gonna fight you for this, and I’m gonna win.  Whether it’s sooner or later is up to you.”

“Sooner,” Roy says, curling his fingers into the soft, silken hair at the back of Ed’s neck and pulling him back down.  He dreamed this—sleeping and waking, in bed, at his desk, in meetings, in the shower, in the car as the streetlamps blurred to the color of Ed’s eyes in shadow.  He imagined Ed’s nose grazing his cheek, Ed’s tongue in his mouth, Ed’s palm along his jaw, Ed’s eyelashes flicking against his skin.  He fantasized _vividly_ in the hopes that reality would pale in comparison, but it turns out he was committing the cardinal sin of underestimating Ed.

He’s still committing it, up until the point at which Ed shifts to press the flesh knee hard and unambiguously between Roy’s legs, and Roy’s breath catches in his throat.

He fumbles to catch Ed’s shoulders, grasp them, and push just forcefully enough to pry them apart.

The breath that stuck takes the opportunity to stumble out of his throat in a half-choked gasp, and watching the way that the sound summons blood to Ed’s cheeks only makes it worse—makes it all worse, the wanting, the desperation, the struggle to keep his head on straight.

“Not now,” Roy manages.

Ed looks positively offended and then slightly hurt, and Roy’s heart stops staggering drunkenly around in his ribcage long enough to squeeze.

“What the fuck do you mean, not now?” Ed asks.  He jerks his hips against Roy’s, and the contact makes Roy’s heartrate skyrocket again as his body leaps to respond in kind.  “We’re both fuckin’ ready, I don’t see—”

“We,” Roy says, tussling with the quaver in his voice, “are approaching the conclusion of a diplomatic visit.  This room has been very courteously lent to me, its walls are thin, and its door does not have a lock.”

Ed looks… bereft.  Shit.  Roy really is too old for this; he’s going to have a heart condition after two weeks of _Ed_.

“It’s not that I don’t want to,” Roy says, reaching up and tugging gently at his hair.  “It’s—the opposite, really.  I honestly don’t know that I’d survive if we were interrupted in the middle and had to stop.”

Ed stares down at him for a long, long moment.  Then Ed quirks a smile, and _then_ Ed rolls his much-too-tantalizing eyes and sprawls out, settling his body over Roy’s.  The automail is somewhat heavier even than Roy expected—and he’d thought about it in some detail; should he still be ashamed to admit as much?—but on the whole Ed’s weight is… perfect.  It’s pleasant.  It’s warm and concrete and grounding.  Their legs are tangled; it’s just a breath away from painful to be throbbing into one another’s thighs.  Their hearts prod at each other through their chests, and Ed’s tucked his head neatly up under Roy’s chin, and as he blows out a faintly exasperated sigh, the humid air flutters over Roy’s throat and past his ear.

“Fine,” he says.  “Figures you’re already a fucking tease.  Just doomed us both to having to ride horses through the desert all horny and shit.”

“Some of us,” Roy says delicately, “have a bit of practice.”

He can feel Ed’s face making way for the grin.  “Perv.”

“I’m just getting started,” Roy says, running his fingers through Ed’s ponytail; this, too is even more wonderful than he dreamed—

“I don’t—” Ed swallows, fidgets, twists his automail fingers into Roy’s shirt again.  How can this already be so comfortable?  “—care.  I don’t care, I don’t mind, whatever.  I know you’ve got… priorities.  I understand that better than pretty much anyone.  So I can be your dirty little secret for as long as… you want to.  As long as you want—me.”

“My dirty, statistically average-sized for his age secret, surely,” Roy says softy, which just _barely_ stops the _Forever, forever, please, I’ll do anything, the sun won’t rise in the morning without you_ before it slips out past his lips.

“Bastard,” Ed mumbles.

“Your bastard,” Roy says, “for what it’s worth.”

Ed’s smile twitches wide against his skin.  “Guess it’ll have to do, won’t it?”

 

* * *

 

Xing isn’t so different from Amestris, and Ling is coming spectacularly into his own.

What they hold on this particular occasion is more a council meeting than a trial, although Roy, Ed, and Riza are all required to attend the entirety and testify about their experiences through a translator.  Ed and Roy each have to tell the story from start to finish; Ed sketches the tower with as much scientific accuracy as his left hand will depict; Roy reproduces the character he saw on the ceiling and describes the Hua Wei’s clothing in such extensive detail that _Ed_ rolls his eyes.  The circle of men with narrow mustaches and impressive beards exchanges glances in almost every possible combination; occasionally someone will nod.  Ling spends the duration looking interested and faintly amused.  There’s silence as Roy and Ed speak, but when the questions come, the voices are loud and fast and concurrent; the councilors speak over one another indiscriminately, and the pretty young woman translating stares at them like they’re unruly animals.

Riza is a _pillar_ , of course, but Roy’s long since relied on that—Roy has founded his life and his career and his sanity on her strength.  With Ed, it’s a bit more surprising.  Ed makes eye contact with Alphonse at the edge of the room, and then Ed stands up straight and… well, tall.  The bravado that’s bolstered him since he was twelve has developed into a much gentler kind of confidence—nothing can touch Ed now; nothing can unseat him; he has accomplished the most important thing in the world and left it perched on a wooden chair by the door, chewing on its tangible fingernails; he cannot be shaken.

He can still be exasperated, as quickly becomes evident, but Roy finds his heart warming to that, too.  Roy wants to wrap both arms around him and murmur soothingly, laugh softly as the complaints peter out, kiss the scowl away.

Roy is… _proud_ seems like the wrong word; _proud_ is presumptuous; _proud_ sounds like he’s taking credit.  It’s not _pride_ , not really; it’s an appreciation so deep, so profound, and so all-encompassing that it makes his skin tingle and his heart sing paeans to his inexplicable luck.  Roy’s impressed, and grateful, and irretrievably in love.

When he can tear his eyes away from Ed’s face, Ed’s cheekbones, the tightening line of Ed’s jaw, the resigned annoyance in his bright-gold eyes, he watches the councilors for clues.  They seem to be believing it, if nothing else.  Ed’s conviction tends to be believed; Ed’s sincerity is unassailable.

Whatever the particulars of the arrangement, however equitable the layout of the tables, Roy is aware that his fate hangs in the balance here.  He has killed again.  He has ended lives.  And it’s a familiar vacuum in his stomach, yes—but Ed is so _much_ that he keeps filling the space even as it empties itself out.  Ed is perpetual.  Roy would endure a hundred-thousand of these accusations for Ed’s safety; it’s equivalent; he _cares_ , of course, he’s _suffering_ , he feels the weight of consequence, but he doesn’t fear.

All he has is the truth.  All he has is a good intention.  All he has is a prayer for justice.

Today, for once, what he has seems to be enough.

 

* * *

 

“Mostly just a formality,” Ling says brightly, hands hidden in his sleeves as they gather afterward for farewells.  “You’ve all seen me cutting homunculi heads in half and so on and so forth, but it’s best if we establish a tradition of transparency, don’t you think?”

“You better get a new Amestrian dictionary,” Ed says.  “‘Transparency’ is a really shitty synonym for ‘interrogation’.”

“I do so enjoy exercising my vocabulary,” Ling says.

“Yeah, well, you oughta ex _or_ cise it next time.”

“Well-punned,” Roy says before the banter can continue indefinitely.  “Your Highness, I cannot tell you how grateful we are for your support; the situation was extraordinarily sensitive, and I reacted emotionally.”

“All of us are only human,” Ling says.  “I think we wield our power best when we remember that.  Don’t pout, Ed; you know it makes you irresistible.”

Ed sputters.  Ling’s elusive hands emerge from his sleeves to clasp both of Ed’s tightly.

“I wish you the best things the world has to offer, my friend,” he says.  “And I wish you would write letters, you miserable punk.”  He beams.  “Pornographic ones would be lovely.”

Ed sputters again, cheeks flaring hot pink, and his elbows twitch as he tries to pull his hands away.  Before he succeeds, Ling reels him in and kisses him soundly on the mouth.

Roy thinks, distantly, that he should be consumed with jealousy.  Perhaps it’s the shock, but he’s mostly just turned on.  Is that what kissing Ed looks like from a distance of more than an inch?  _Damn_ , Roy has never been luckier in three decades; this is the break of a lifetime, and he cannot, _will_ not, waste it.

Ed’s sputtering resolves into “—the _fuck_ , Ling?” as the emperor of Xing pulls away looking positively tickled.

“It’s traditional,” Ling says.

“Like fuck it is!”

“That’s the great thing about this job,” Ling says.  “I get to decide what’s traditional and what’s not.”

Ed bristles and finally extracts his fingers from Ling’s grip.  “That’s not what ‘traditional’ fucking _means_ —”

“Then think of it something to remember me by,” Ling says.  He takes Alphonse’s hand next and shakes it firmly.  “Please visit.  Please don’t poison me.”

“Oh,” Alphonse says airily, “it wouldn’t be poison.  That would be too pleasant.  Thank you very much for your hospitality, Your Highness.”

Ling’s grimace becomes another grin as Riza moves to shake his hand next.  It is a testament to the young emperor’s agility that he manages to maneuver to kiss her knuckles instead.  Riza’s eyebrow rises very, very slowly, and Roy swears he hears a weary sigh coming from the ceiling.

“We’re honored by your support and grateful for your time,” Riza says.  “Please do keep in touch, sir.”

“If I know what you mean?” Ling asks hopefully.

Roy catches himself rubbing his thumb and fingertip together.

But then, of course, it’s his turn.  And then, of course, his crisp, practiced, perfectly-executed bow turns into an ungraceful stumble as Ling grabs his arm and tugs.

“None of that!” Ling says as Roy stares, righting himself.  “We’re going to be very good friends, General Mustang.  This is how friends say goodbye.”

And then the Emperor of Xing is pulling Roy into a rib-cracking hug.

“Careful, by the way,” Ling murmurs into his ear.  “Ed’s a biter.”

Roy can’t quite decide whether to be aroused or terrified.

 

* * *

 

Ed is making his horse keep pace with Roy’s in order to glare at Roy from under the edge of his hood.

“I already apologized,” Roy says.

Ed continues to glare.

“Do you think I’m not in a similar position?” Roy asks.

Ed’s bottom lip pushes out.  Dry-to-peeling as it is, Roy wants to nibble it, lick it, lathe it up and down, corner to corner, back and forth.

“Do you think—” Roy lowers his voice, glances around them.  “—it would be any _better_ if we had the specifics of experience to think about?”

Ed sighs feelingly.  Roy wants to tackle him out of the saddle and have him in the sand.

It’s going to be a long trip.

 

* * *

 

“You’re a _general_ ,” Ed says.  “If you can’t even get a private compartment, who the fuck can?”

“I don’t believe in abusing the privileges of rank for my personal comfort,” Roy says.

“Even if he had, Brother,” Alphonse says, legs crossed at the knee as he studies the newspaper Roy bought at the station, which had disappeared from under his arm even before they’d boarded, “Captain Hawkeye and I would still be here.  You wouldn’t want to do anything _private_ in a private compartment with an audience, would you?”

Ed’s mouth hangs open, and his eyes widen hugely.

Riza sorts through the sachet of folders she had Breda send East for them to pick up, selects one, and passes it across to Roy.  “In addition, I don’t imagine that it would be particularly comfortable, with all of the rattling.”

“We should also take the saddle sores into consideration,” Alphonse says thoughtfully.

Roy flips the cover of the folder open and works his voice on the second attempt.  “Could we please all agree not to discuss train compartment sex in public _ever again_?”

“We’re just looking out for your best interests, sir,” Riza says calmly.  “The bruises would be troublesome to exp—”

“Holy… shit.”  Ed’s voice is a burble at best; Roy is legitimately worried that he’ll pop his own eyes out.

“I order everyone who reports to me to stop talking about this,” Roy says quickly.

Alphonse laughs low and deep, like a villain in a melodrama, and Roy gains an entirely new understanding of the word _dread_.

 

* * *

 

The second train, after the transfer, is better.  The second train verges on magnificent.  The second train offers them a quieter carriage and a smoother track, and inside of ten minutes, Ed has stretched out on the seat and fallen asleep with his head on Roy’s thigh.

Roy’s tired, too.  He thinks giddily, ludicrously, overflowingly.  Ed’s ponytail pours over his knee like a waterfall of liquid gold.

 _I will never take you for granted,_ Roy thinks.  _Not once._

“Go ahead,” Alphonse says idly as Roy holds his hands _entirely_ still to stop the folders from rustling.

Roy blinks at him.  Riza does not appear to be listening, which of course means that she is.

“He’s like a cat,” Alphonse says.  “He loves to be petted.  He just won’t let you most of the time, because he thinks it’s girly, so you should get a start on it while he can’t argue.”

Roy’s life is blessed, _blessed_ , and he runs his fingers slowly through the trailing fan of hair again, gently working the tangles out.  Ed sighs in his sleep and mutters unintelligibly.

“Has he snored for you yet?” Alphonse asks.

Despite the fact that such distinctions are usually the pulsing lifeblood of his career, Roy can’t tell if he should count Alphonse as a powerful friend or an absolutely terrifying enemy.


	2. AMESTRIS

Ed staggers into Roy’s office at ten-fourteen and fifty-six seconds the next morning, which makes it safe to assume that he rolled out of bed right about when the appointment was meant to begin and sleep-walked over.  Roy thinks for a startling half-moment that Ed is raising his right hand to salute, but then the hand is employed to rub his eyes instead.  Ed scrubbing at his eyelids with his metal knuckles transitions into Ed blinking in a betrayed sort of way at his fingers, as though it’s their fault that he’s forgotten which of his hands is gentler.

Still gazing at his automail, Ed says, “I had a dream last night that you lit Ling’s palace on fire.  Al had to wake me up.”  He raises his head and meets Roy’s eyes, puzzled now.  “But I wasn’t scared of you; I was just trying to get people out before the burning tapestries fell on them.  Is that fucked up?”

“I…” Roy clears his throat.  “…do not specialize in dream analysis as it relates to human psychology.  I do, however, have your next assignment.”

Ed bares his teeth, eyes still bleary-hazy and soft, as he stomps forward to snatch the folder from Roy’s outstretched hand.  “Don’t you ever _sleep_ , asshole?  Oh, wait, you do, and then you make these sad-puppy noises and start kicking like you’re—”

He sees the single sheet of paper in the folder.  Beneath the usual military stationery header, it reads only _The team seems to have scented something on me, and they’re probably straining their ears towards the door.  Shall we discuss matters at my house over takeout instead?_

Ed’s face twists into a scowl, which quavers and slowly gives way to a heart-wrenchingly sweet little grin.  He pushes several other files aside in order to lay the folder back down on Roy’s desk, pausing only to steal the pen from Roy’s hand rather than selecting one from the nearby cup of them.

Roy watches the letters form upside-down, trying not to let the glee bubble out of his chest and manifest as humming or laughter or breathy sighs that would expose him instantly.

 _You could not be more lame,_ Ed writes.  _But don’t try because there’s a possibility that you actually could.  Okay: 1. You’re paying. 2. No Xingese food because I’m fucking sick of Xingese food. 3. Half past 7 and you’d better be there because if I have to stand on your doorstep waiting in the dark like some stupid girl I will punch you in the face, Mustang. 4. Maybe if you’re good I’ll kiss it better. 5. Now you’re going to burn this piece of paper to little tiny ashes and throw them in the river._

Ed turns the folder around and slaps a hand down on it for good measure.  There’s a touch of pink in his cheeks, but he looks defiant, not embarrassed.  “Those are my terms.”

All is lost.  But then, all has been lost for months now, and Roy’s finding that he minds less than he expected.

“Done,” he says, and he signs beneath by drawing a heart.

Ed fights a grin and loses.  “Oh, puke,” he says in an undertone.  “I bet if I cut you, you’d bleed sap.”

“That’s highly biologically implausible,” Roy says.  “Is there anything else, Fullmetal?”

“Yeah,” Ed says, raising his forearm to cover a yawn.  “Don’t count on me for any of your bullshit for the next week or so.  Winry’s coming up from Rush Valley this Saturday, and I’ll probably be in the hospital for a while after she beats me to within an inch of my life for putting so many dents in my arm.”

“Consider yourself not counted upon for any bullshit,” Roy says.

He would go through all of it— _all_ of it—again, again a thousand times, just to earn that little laugh.

Ed’s right; he’s getting awfully sappy.

 

* * *

 

“Look,” Roy calls, holding his watch out in front of him as he strides very, very quickly up the front walk.  “Seven twenty-nine, Ed; I’m _early_.”

Ed is less than impressed, and he rather ostentatiously tugs the glove from his automail fingers until he catches the scent wafting from the bag clutched in Roy’s free hand.  “Is that…”

“The best Cretan food in the city?” Roy says.  “I certainly think so.”  Ed goes silent in order to salivate more efficiently.  Crisis and/or second black eye averted inside of a minute; Roy’s on a roll tonight.  He twitches the cavalry skirt aside with his bent wrist and tucks his watch back into his pocket, and then he retrieves his housekeys.  “Tell me about your day.”

“I researched crap,” Ed says.

Roy opens the door, holds it for Ed, ignores the eye-roll, steps in after him, closes the door, bolts it, and turns on the foyer light.

“You researched crap,” he says, “and…?”

“I dunno,” Ed says.  “Breathed?  Had lunch?  Made a bet with Al about whether you’d burn that ‘assignment’ or keep it in your love letter collection?”  Shit, they’re onto him.  “I haven’t done anything but _research crap_ since… well, the Promised Day.”  His eyes narrow.  “Hang on a second, have you been _protecting_ me or something?”

Roy moves into the kitchen and starts unpacking the containers.  “There has been a great deal of policy precedent to index and categorize now that the shape of the government is changing.  Your nearly superhuman ability to pore over information for endless hours has been invaluable.”

“That’s a Mustang answer.”

“It was a Fullmetal question.”

Ed pushes his hair back from his face and then lets it fall.  “Fine.  Whatever.  If I am legitimately contributing to your endgame, then—okay.  Just… don’t treat me like I’m fragile, Roy.  And don’t you _dare_ fucking treat me differently because of—this.”

Roy hands over a fork, which is extraordinarily brave of him when Ed’s in one of these moods.  It may well end up lodged in his esophagus momentarily; he hopes that his courage will be foregrounded in his eulogy.  “I’ve been protecting you since the beginning,” he says.  “As much as I can, anyway.  That I did not send you on a single expedition in the last year was not because I think you’re fragile, Edward; it’s because you have even more to lose now, and _I’m_ too weak to watch you risk it.  Besides, things are physically safer for everyone these days—the games are being played with words and alliances now.  This is a battle, yes, but not the kind that leaves anyone bloody.  Honestly, it’s easier on me if you’re tucked away in the library, out of the public eye, out of my rivals’ sight and hopefully off of their minds.  I’m utilizing your quieter talents, and you’re close to Alphonse, and if I’m very fortunate no one will think to use you against me for a while yet.”

Ed stands in his kitchen, turning the fluorescent light into something wonderful, and holds onto the fork.  His eyes are narrowed—slits of staggering honeyed gold—and his shoulders are angled for a fight.

Then they pop upward, drop, and circle a little, and Ed sighs.

“All right,” he says.

Roy blinks.  “All… right?”

“Yeah,” Ed says, and he catches the tines of the fork between his teeth and shrugs again.  “I trust you.”

Roy does not seem to have a stomach anymore.  He’d always thought evisceration would be unpleasant, but it’s like his vanished intestines have been replaced with pure sunlight.

“Plus I’m starving,” Ed says, and the universe stutters back into an alignment that makes sense.  “We’ll never get to eat if one of us doesn’t shut up.  So what’d you get?”  That seems to be a rhetorical question, given that he’s already opening the little boxes.  “Holy crap, this looks good.”

“Only the best for you, my dear,” Roy says, and he deserves the glare, because he pitched it as a flirtatious joke—but it’s not.  He wants Ed only ever to get the best of him, only ever to see the best of him, only ever to _think_ it.  He knows he can’t control that; knows Ed’s already seen him beaten down, beaten up, broken, bitter, cold.  He knows he can only try, try harder, pray to gods kinder than the one guarding the stone doors—he can only try and hope that _all_ of him will be enough.  Best, good, bad, worst.

“I take it you can’t cook for shit either?” Ed asks, putting his fork directly into the takeout container, as apparently distributing food to plates wastes time that could be spent eating.

“For shit, certainly,” Roy says.  “Perhaps not for money.  I think I might be good at it if I had the time to plan and practice instead of being forced to improvise when I’m too tired to fetch anything; as it is I suppose I’m competent.  Although I do have a not entirely unsurprising tendency to turn the heat up too high.”

“Cool,” Ed says primly, reaching out to hook a hand in the braiding of the uniform and—oh, good _Lord_ —cram a forkful of something Roy barely tastes into his mouth.  “You can do the cooking.”

Love has addled Roy’s brain—addled, rattled, rotted.  He stands and stares and attempts to remember how to chew.

Edward Elric, who has never before set foot in his home, is banging through the cupboards (and glaring at the higher ones) as he searches for a glass.  Edward Elric, on their first semi-official semi-date, has nominated Roy to do the cooking in their relationship.

Roy says, “I’ll make sure to add extra milk to everything,” and what that means is _I would make you caviar and foie gras every single night if it would convince you to stay._

 

* * *

 

Saturday morning, Roy knocks at the door to the Elrics’ flat, which is something of a challenge to do without spilling the canister of coffee or crushing the bag of pastries.

The door opens, and bright olive-tinted eyes go brighter still on seeing him, which is a tremendous relief.

“Good morning, Alphonse,” Roy says.  “I understand Miss Rockbell is due in today, and I thought I might bring breakfa—”

“You’ve already figured out to feed ’em, huh?” a young woman’s voice says.  “I guess you’re not a general for nothing.”

Alphonse steps back out of the doorway, grinning, and gestures permissively.

“Oh, fuck,” Ed says from the couch, which is not _quite_ the reaction Roy would have hoped for from his—boyfriend?  Is that even close to the right word for this—?

Ed, squirming on the couch in nothing more than a pale blue pair of boxer shorts, with his hair loose and his eyes strangely shy, is almost enough to make Roy drop the coffee on the carpet.

Winry leaps up from rummaging in her toolbox and darts over to throw both arms around Roy’s neck, which is startling and rather sweet.  Alphonse is kind enough to take the pastries away; Roy raises one arm to hug the girl gently, and she leans in closer to kiss his cheek—

—and to whisper, “Al just told me, and if you screw with him, I’ll castrate you.  I have _so many_ saws.”

Roy swallows.  “It’s lovely to see you, too, Miss Rockbell.”

Winry claps him on the shoulder and then saunters over to the couch again.

“Chocolate croissants?” Alphonse asks, gazing blissfully into the bag.  “All right, Brother; you can keep him.”

“Maybe,” Winry says, pulling on her work gloves and taking Ed’s arm in both hands.

“And here I thought _he_ was the one who was gonna be a dictator,” Ed mutters.

“Oh, hush,” Winry says.  “It’s not me you have to worry about.”

Alphonse takes the coffee from Roy and sets it and the pastries down on the table next to the overflowing toolbox.  “I’m getting mugs.  Make yourself at home, Brigadier General.”

Roy wonders if it’s a coincidence that the seat least-blanketed in newspapers, textbooks, and cat hair is the armchair next to the couch, as close to Ed as a body can get without sitting directly beside him.  Roy doesn’t think he believes in coincidences when it comes to Alphonse.  All the same, he settles and folds his arms across his chest.

“What does that mean?” Ed asks, gritting his teeth as Winry… detaches his right arm and removes it, and it—goes limp.  Goes dead.  Ceases to be a part of Ed, an extension of his brain and his feelings, and becomes a piece of metal.  The fingers dangle; it gleams dully; it is merely a _thing_.

Winry hefts it and swings it so that the hand waves at Roy.

Roy… wishes he hadn’t had a cup of coffee himself when he bought the rest, because it has become a tide of hot acid in his stomach.

Ed is watching closely, carefully.  He swallows, and then he musters a faint smile, left hand clenching in the closest throw pillow.  “You know this is—nakeder than naked, for me, right?”

Roy makes absolutely sure that none of the _God, I want to hold you; you’re so tiny_ filters through to his face, because Ed would probably apply the metal foot to a very sensitive part of his anatomy for that.  He meets Ed’s eyes and smiles back.  “This is how you looked the first time I met you.”

Ed’s cheeks redden, but he grins.  “Oh, you _bastard_.”

Roy tries not to blush right back at him; they’ll look positively ridiculous.  “I beg your _pardon_.  You suggested it.”

Winry pokes Ed’s chest with the forefinger of his arm.  “Hey, eyes over here, dummy.  How’d you scratch my masterpiece so much?”

“Got kidnapped,” Ed says.  “And… stuff.  Wait, wait, wait—what did you mean earlier?  If it’s not you I oughta worry about, who is it?”

“Granny,” she says, setting the arm down on the tabletop and removing one of the plates on the forearm.  “Where did you say it was fritzing?”

“All the fingers were twitching last night,” Ed says.  “Weren’t they, Al?”

“You were very agitated after you came back from the general’s,” Alphonse says mildly, setting a mug just out of range of Winry’s elbow.

“Traitor,” Ed says.

“I love you too, Brother,” Alphonse says.

“Damn,” Winry mutters, sifting through the wiring with a pair of tweezers.  “Yeah, you jarred one of the connections loose.  What were you doing, throwing punches at brick walls again?”

“Getting buried alive, mostly,” Ed says.  “And climbing down towers with metal rope.  What do you mean, Granny’s the one I should worry about?”

“She’ll send you all these books about embracing your sexuality,” Winry says, sorting through one of the little drawers in her toolbox.  “They’re a good size for propping up table legs, though.  And Mister Garfiel will probably call and talk to you for hours about how glad he is that you’re on ‘the team’.  Buried _alive_ , Ed?”

“Not, like, buried-in-a-grave,” Ed says.  “Just got a ton of dirt dropped on us.  Maybe literally a ton; I didn’t get a chance to estimate the volume.  What the _hell_ is ‘the team’?”

“I’m not sure,” Winry says, and Alphonse stirs two sugars and some cream into her coffee.  “That’s just what happened when Paninya started dating Joanie.  I thought you were just going to Ling’s coronation.”

Roy clears his throat.  “When does Edward ‘just’ do anything?”

Three gazes shift over and settle on him as if their owners had forgotten he was there—which they probably had.  Roy isn’t particularly surprised or particularly offended; he’s seen the Elric-Elric-Rockbell triad in action before.

“Good point,” Winry says.  She catches up a small wrench and taps Ed’s right knee with it, warningly.  “Well, whatever you were doing, you _busted_ it.”

“I’m _sorry_ ,” Ed says.  “It’s easier to fix than my skull, isn’t it?”

“Like you could possibly break your skull,” Winry says, hunkering down over the arm again.  “It’s way too thick.  Al, would you pretty please get m—”

Alphonse nudges the mug towards her.

She blinks, beams, and slugs a quarter of it with a gusto that even Roy’s caffeine tolerance has to admire.

“Aren’t you hungry, Ed?” Roy asks slowly as Alphonse digs into the pastries.  “I’m starting to worry that you’re ill.”

Ed chews his lip.  “Well, it’s just—it’s better not to eat ’til it’s over.”

“Last time Brother stuffed himself right before his arm was reinserted,” Alphonse says calmly, “he vomited.”

“Shut up,” Ed says.

“On the dog.”

“ _Shut up_!”

“And the rug—”

“Al, I am going to _smack_ you.”

“No, you’re not,” Winry says.  “You only just got him that body back, and you’re not about to bruise it over something like that.”

Ed glares at her, and she raises an eyebrow challengingly.

“Is it…” This is new information to Roy, but apparently he’s the only one.  “It’s that bad?”

“It’s—” Ed chews on his lip, glances at Roy, glances way, and jogs his right foot.  “Well, it sucks.  It’s—”

“All the remaining nerves in his arm reconnect to the simulated ones in the automail at the same time,” Winry says, twisting a wire with an amazingly delicate touch for someone who routinely threatens Ed with bodily harm.

“And reconnecting’s not, like, tingly,” Ed says.  “It’s like a jolt on every single nerve.  Which adds up to it feeling like—getting a sledgehammer to the shoulder.  Except _sharper_ than that.  I dunno.  It hurts like a bitch, is what I’m saying.”

“And it once made you vomit on a bitch,” Alphonse says solemnly.

Winry points at him with one of the wrenches, and the color leaches from his face.  “Don’t you talk about my Den like that, Alphonse Elric.”

“It’s a technical term,” Alphonse says in a tiny voice.

Ed rolls his eyes.  “Look, Den forgave me, like, four seconds later, and I learned not to eat right before we put it back.  Whatever.”

“Whatever,” Winry mutters.  “My mechanical magnum opus is ‘whatever’.”

“Maybe if your mechanical magnum opus didn’t feel like a torture device sometimes, _grease monkey_.”

“Can it, _alchemy nerd_.”

Ed leans forward and sets his remaining elbow on his knee, squishing his cheek as he rests his chin on his hand.  “Are you almost done?”

“Almost,” Winry says without looking up.  “It’s a good thing you called.  Even though it’s your fault in the first place, I’m glad we caught it early—if you’d done any more stupid stuff, you might’ve knocked the wire all the way out, and your whole hand would’ve stopped working, and then, knowing you, you would’ve tried to fix it with alchemy and ruined the whole th—”

“I would _not_ ,” Ed says.

“Anyway,” Winry says, raising the tiniest soldering iron Roy has ever laid eyes on, “this is an easy fix.”

“Let me guess,” Ed says.  “Even easy-fix house calls don’t come cheap.”

Winry just smiles and maneuvers the tiny white-flamed iron into the workings of the automail.

“Well,” Alphonse says, “that’ll give us more time to show you around the city before your train back.”  He takes a tremendous bite of croissant and, around it, adds something that Roy _thinks_ is “We can visit the Hugheses.”

“Chew and swallow, Al,” Ed says.  “You’re not gonna be able to enjoy those tastebuds anymore if you choke to death.”

“You,” Winry says to him, “are going to buff this with alchemy, and I am going to supervise, because you’re _always_ lazy about it, and I don’t want my work to look bad.”

“It never does, Miss Rockbell,” Roy says, leaping on the chance to cut in while both Elrics have paused for breath.  “To be honest, I think he showcases it magnificently—not that that’s difficult given what he’s working with.”

Winry’s cheeks go faintly pink, and she smiles slowly.  “That’s… very nice of you, General.”

“He’s pretty good at sucking up,” Ed says though a scowl.

“Well, Brother,” Alphonse says, “let us know if he’s good at sucking.”

Ed sputters “ _Al_!”, Roy very nearly falls out of his chair, and Winry elbows her mug off the table as she whips around to stare.

“Oops,” Al says, clapping to crystallize the coffee out of the carpet.  “Sorry, that was a bit… lowbrow, wasn’t it?”

“‘A bit’?” Ed says.  “‘ _A bit_ ’, Al?  Where’d this raunchy streak of yours come from, anyway?  Are your university friends a bunch of fucking perverts or something?”

Al puts the rather considerable, somewhat sparkly coffee crystal onto the tabletop, folds his arms, and stares at it morosely.

“Not especially,” he says.  “It’s… sometimes I think my brain is trying to catch up for three years of not having the body parts to really… _get_ …dirty jokes.”

Winry pulls a glove off, sets her bare hand on his shoulder, squeezes, and smiles.  “I think you’re doing fine,” she says.

“Better than fine,” Ed says.  “Amazing.  Fantastic.”

“Even if you are already trying to turn yourself into a cat lady,” Winry says.

“ _Hey_!” Al says.  “I am _not_ —”

The ginger cat that has been tiptoeing around the perimeter of the room for the past few minutes chooses that moment to climb into his lap and sniff at his hands.

“Bad kitty,” Alphonse says, scratching gently behind the cat’s right ear.  It butts its head appreciatively against his palm.  “Are you hungry?  She looks hungry.  Why don’t you come help me feed the cats, General?”

To be fair, that’s how Roy would have phrased _Let’s step into a different room so I can grill you about your intentions towards my brother without the company hearing us_ , too.

Evidently it’s not entirely an excuse: Alphonse hands Roy three little cylindrical cans to pry the tops off of.  As Roy tussles, Alphonse lifts a huge, green-eyed gray cat in both arms and curls his fingers gently into its fur.

“Yesterday Brother was waving a feather around for Vanderbilt and laughing,” Alphonse says.  “Wasn’t he, Van?”

The cat gazes at him unrevealingly.  Its tail twitches.

Roy takes care not to slice his finger open on the lid of the can; the military should start making bayonet blades out of jagged tin, given how badly the edges of this piece want to draw his blood.  “Are you converting him into a feline aficionado already?”

“General,” Alphonse says, “he usually calls this cat some variation of ‘Fuckface Fuzzbucket Hate-You.’”

Roy pauses.  “That’s a mouthful.”

Alphonse leans his face down into the cat’s thick fur for a moment, eyes brightly alert even in deep thought.  He jogs the cat a little higher in his arms.

“I know,” he says, “that things don’t always work out.  People change, or grow, or… Things slowly fall apart sometimes.  People fall apart; people fall in and out of love.  That’s just entropy.  Promises mean nothing to entropy, and intentions mean nothing, and it is unscientific to ask for guarantees.  Sometimes things don’t work, and it’s nobody’s fault.”  He looks up, and somehow— _somehow_ —red-burning eyes set in a metal face seven feet off the ground were less piercing than the ones he’s fixed on Roy right now.  “But if something happens, and it _is_ your fault…”

“Miss Rockbell already threatened me with castration,” Roy says.

Alphonse smiles slightly.  “I think I may have to marry her.”  He blinks, and then he sighs.  “I’m sorry; I have three years of pent-up hormones finally running free, and they’re a bit disastrous.”

“Quite all right,” Roy says slowly.  “Message received, in any case.”

Alphonse gently sets the huge cat on the floor, straightens, takes the tin from Roy’s hand, empties it into a bowl, and crouches to place it in front of the cat.  “It’s nothing personal,” he says.  “I really do like you, and of course I appreciate everything you’ve done on our behalf.  It’s just that Brother is always going to come first.  And when he wants something badly, he forgets to think of himself—deliberately refuses to, occasionally.  I’m not quite sure if he would let himself be walked on to keep the peace with someone he loved, and… I don’t want to find out.”  He looks up at Roy, and even from the floor, with a cat coiling around his ankles, he is _powerful_.  “Just… watch your step.”

“I will,” Roy says.  “I can promise you that much.”

“ _Al_ ,” Ed calls from the living room, “stop flirting with m—Roy.  Do we have any liquor around here?”

“We have the terrible wine Lieutenant Havoc gave us as a housewarming gift,” Alphonse says.

“We suck,” Ed says.  “That’s not good enough.”

“Don’t be a _baby_ ,” Winry says.

Roy dares to peer around the doorframe into the living room.  “Why do—?”

Winry is sitting at Ed’s right, holding the automail arm steady in both hands, lining it up carefully to correspond with the port on his shoulder.  And Ed…

Ed is pressed back against the couch like a cornered animal, left hand clenched in the cushion, jaw set and eyes wild.

Roy doesn’t think.  Roy doesn’t even have intellect anymore, not in any meaningful way, not when it comes to Ed.

Roy crosses the room, dodging around the table, to sit in the narrow space remaining on the couch, and takes Ed’s hand tightly in both of his.

“You’re gonna bring me flowers next,” Ed says.  “Aren’t you?”

“I have no interest in encouraging you to remove my liver manually and without anesthetic,” Roy says.

“Both of you hush,” Winry says.  “Ed, you ready?”

“Just do i—”

The intensity of the focus of Winry’s stark blue eyes is startling.  “Three…”

Ed grits his teeth.

“Two…”

Winry glances at Ed and connects the arm before he can tense any further.

A half-strangled sound that might have started out in his lungs as a scream chokes out of Ed’s throat—a _raw_ sound of pain; Roy’s stomach contracts—and sweat beads on his forehead, and he wrings Roy’s right hand until it aches.

All that remains in Roy’s power to do is to endure it—to hold him.  To stay.

Ed drags in a deep breath, releases it shakily, blinks hard, and relaxes his muscles and his grip.

“Thanks, Win,” he says—just a _touch_ unsteadily, and even that touch makes Roy’s heart melt and dribble down his ribs.

“Don’t thank me ’til you see the bill,” Winry says.  She rummages in one of the pockets of her coveralls, finds a densely-folded scrap of paper, and holds it up between her thumb and her first finger.  Ed lifts his right arm and flicks it out of her grip; it bounces to the table as he flexes the rest of his fingers and works his elbow experimentally.

“At least you’re good for something,” he says.

“I’m adding a surcharge for customer rudeness,” Winry says.  “What’s half of his paycheck add up to, General?”

“I’m afraid that’s confidential,” Roy says.

Ed leans forward and drapes his arms around Winry’s shoulders in a clumsy approximation of a hug, and by her smile Roy can tell she’s going to let it go.

“Now you can have a pastry, Brother,” Alphonse says cheerfully.

“Let me get one before he eats them _all_ ,” Winry says, and then there’s a flurry of moving hands and flying croissant flakes, and Roy thinks he understands now why family is _everything_ to the Elrics.

“I’m afraid,” he says when Ed’s mouth is opportunely occupied, “that I need to head for the office now.”

“If’f _Ffa’ur’ay_ ,” Ed says, undeterred by something so inconsequential as the croissant filling his cheeks.

“I’m aware,” Roy says.  “There’s a lot of catching up to do, especially after our trip to Xing, ah… ran longer than expected.”

“Don’t pout, Brother,” Alphonse says before Roy gets the chance.  “We can take Winry around today.  I’m sure the general will be available tomorrow.”

Ed takes a swig of coffee and raises an eyebrow.  “He’ll be available tonight if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Knowing what’s good for me is my specialty,” Roy says.

“Then pick me up at six.”

“Eight is more realistic,” Roy says.

Ed’s eyes narrow.  “Six-thirty.”

Roy crosses his arms.  “I will _strive_ for seven.”

“Good,” Ed says, grinning.  “Jeez, who works on a Saturday anyway?”

Roy stands and brushes the worst of the wrinkles and croissant crumbs from his trousers; valor belongs to the brave.  “Your boyfriend,” he says.

Ed’s grin turns beaming.  “My dumbass boyfriend.”

Roy bends to kiss Ed’s forehead, and Ed seizes his collar and pulls him into something open-mouthed and significantly less innocent, and Roy presages that he is going to have a great deal of trouble focusing on working after this.

 

* * *

 

Roy knocks at two minutes to seven.  Riza would pistol-whip him if she knew how recklessly he’d driven in order to make time for the errand after she finally released him from paperwork purgatory.

Ed swings the door open immediately, and his eyes are bright and happy and hopeful.

Well, they are until he sees—

“ _Flowers_.”  He shifts his glare up to Roy’s face to maximize its effect.  “Didn’t we discuss this pretty fuckin’ clearl—”

“They’re violets,” Roy says.

Ed stares at the bouquet.

He stares at Roy.

And he leans against the doorframe to laugh until his chest is heaving.

“You,” he says when he’s caught his breath, “are somethin’ else.”

“Something good, I hope,” Roy says.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Ed says.  “Go to one of those stupid military parties, and they’ll do it for you.  Al, get me a vase, will ya?”

“Not your servant,” Al calls from—Roy glances around the apartment over Ed’s shoulder—behind a _wall_ of books.  “Put them in the umbrella stand.  I don’t know why we even have an umbrella stand; you just break umbrellas and then drop them so that they soak the carpet, and we’re going to get mold and lose our deposit.”

Roy is still holding the bouquet.  Very, very gently, he pushes it at Ed.

Ed takes it from him without tearing his hands off, and Roy feels terribly blessed.

“I have a boyfriend,” Ed says, slowly and almost cautiously, testing the words like they’re poisonous, “who brings me flowers.”  He blinks.  “Huh.”

Winry emerges into the living room toweling at her hair, dressed in what must be Alphonse’s bathrobe—it’s long on her, and it doesn’t bear any obvious food stains.  “What’s g—oh, how _sweet_!”

Roy can feel the flush creeping up the sides of his neck, and he battles it with all of his might.

“Um,” Winry says as Ed turns to her slowly with venom in his eyes, “sweet in a really… manly… way.  Quit it, dummy.  I think it’s nice.”

“We don’t have a vase,” the voice from behind the books says.

“ _Bachelors_.”  Winry’s voice rings with disdain, and she stalks over to the kitchen.  “Transmute one.  You can use that bottle of wine for the glass, since nobody wants to drink it anyway.  How do you guys even _survive_ without me?”

“It’s a close thing,” Al says at the same time Ed says, “We’re _fine_ , gearhead!”

Winry returns with the green-tinted bottle and grins when Ed hesitates before handing her the violets.  Ed starts to sputter, so Roy clears his throat and nods to the label on the wine.

“Jean’s taste really is appalling,” he says.  “Actually, I think ‘taste’ is a bit too generous a word for what Jean has.”

“At least it’s coming in handy,” Winry says cheerfully.  “All right, Al, impress me with your alchemical flair.  If you put skulls on this thing—”

“I’d _never_ ,” Al says, sounding genuinely horrified.

“But—” Ed says.

“But nothing,” Winry says.  “We’re taking care of this.  You’re going on your date.  Put your coat on.”

“We’re not going on a _date_ ,” Ed says, shoving his arms into the sleeves as though they have personally offended him.  “We’re working on my secret assignment.  Because letting somebody who literally polishes his boots before he toes the line go on a _date_ with his consenting adult subordinate would be illegal.”

Winry looks between Ed’s pinched frown and Roy’s expression, schooled from _pained_ to _neutral with a tinge of wistfulness_.  “Well, that’s shitty,” she says.

Alphonse’s head appears above the books to stare at her, and Ed positively goggles.

“Y…” Ed manages.

“Oh, stop,” Winry says.  “Where do you think I learned it from?  Anyway, that’s dumb, and I’m sorry it has to be like that.  I hope you two have a really nice time discussing secret assignment things.  I’ll make sure Al’s vase is amazing.”

Ed half-smiles at her.  “You know you’re the best, right?”

“I thought I was the best, Brother,” Alphonse says.

“You’re the other best,” Ed says.

“And don’t you forget it,” Winry says.  She plants a hand on Ed’s back and pushes rather vigorously.  “Now _go_.”

“Are you likely to be coming back tonight?” Alphonse asks.  “Or are you planning to stay over at the general’s working out the—ah—kinks in the assignment?”

Ed blushes to the roots of his hair.  “I’m not _planning_ anything, you evil little—”

“I’m already taller than y—”

“We won’t wait up,” Winry cuts in, kissing Ed’s cheek before he can retort.  “We’ll see you if we see you.  Have fun!”

She shoves again, Ed stumbles over the threshold, Roy catches his arms to steady him, and Winry slams the door.

Ed blinks up at Roy, and Roy blinks down at Ed, and Ed bites his lip, and Roy despises the law anew for depriving him of this perfect opportunity to lean down and kiss at the available portion of that lip until Ed forgets to frown.  He can’t take the risk here, not halfway into public, not on a literal threshold that marks the line between safety and oblivion.

He has to keep his head.  He has to keep his head above the surface, because he could _drown_ in Ed, in all that Ed is and can be, and if he lets go they’ll both lose everything.

He strokes his hands down Ed’s arms under the pretense of smoothing the wrinkles in Ed’s coat sleeves.

“Am I the other-other best?” he asks.

“Like your ego needs the help,” Ed says, starting towards the car.  “C’mon, I’m starving.  What’re we having?”

“Whatever you like,” Roy says.  “Takeout, if you want, or I could see what’s in the kitchen to be cooked.”

“I definitely want to see you struggling not to light dinner on fire,” Ed says, slinging himself into the passenger seat before Roy can even try to hold the door for him.  “Should be educational.  What’re you waiting for?”

 _An attack of sanity,_ Roy thinks.

He settles in the car, starts the engine, moves the gearshift—

“You are, though,” Ed says thoughtfully.  “You’re the other-other best.  Don’t let it go to your head.  Now be the other-other best driver and then the other-other best chef before I starve to death.”

Roy wants very much to say something witty, but all that comes out is, “I think you’re the other-other best decision I’ve ever made in my life.”

Ed looks shocked, incredulous, and indescribably pleased.

 

* * *

 

Dinner is not burnt at all, _thank you_.

Ed actually pays Roy the high compliment of savoring the first bite before he tears into the rest like he hasn’t consumed a calorie in several weeks.

“I don’t even like fish,” Ed says when he sits back after cleaning the plate.  “Guess this isn’t quite like having ’em half-raw on the island, though.”

“I’m not sure whether I find the stories you allude to intriguing or horrifying,” Roy says.

“Me neither,” Ed says, sucking one the tines of the fork, and _God_ —

Ed notices the change in Roy’s face.  It’s all just too _big_ ; there is too _much_ ; Roy can’t ever hide it all from him.  Ed’s smile widens into a grin, and the grin begins to _burn_.

“See anything you like?” he asks.

“A great number of things,” Roy says.  “Forgive me; several of them are making me salivate, but I will never rush you, not if I can help i… You’re not listening.”

“That’s ’cause you’re not saying anything I don’t already know,” Ed says, and the grin has a hint of a smirk now, which is really very unfair given how often Ed criticizes Roy for his.

Roy takes a deep breath, sets his elbows on the table, knits his hands together, and looks over them.  He’s used this position for years—it hides half of his face, and psychologically it raises a wall.

“This is important,” he says, “and this is dangerous to both of us.  I don’t want… impatience or… impulsiveness now to hurt us later on.”

Ed crosses his arms and works up an excellent scowl.  “Impatience.”

Roy pauses.  “Haste.”

“Impulsiveness.”

“You and I are both reckless, Edward; sometimes I think most of all with our feelings—”

“Look,” Ed says.  “If it’s a bad idea, then let’s stop.  If it’s not, waiting around isn’t going to change shit.”

Roy’s folded-hands barrier is crumbling under the sheer radiating force of Ed’s conviction.  “I—suppose, but I… never want to make you uncomforta—”

“For fuck’s sake, Roy,” Ed says, scrubbing a hand at his hair.  “You forget who you’re talking to here?  I don’t give two shits what society thinks, and this thing we’ve got is already breaking the rules anyway.  I do stuff all the way, full throttle, or I don’t do it at all.  I don’t even know how to swim anywhere but the deep end.”  He rolls his eyes, _slowly_.  “And if you’re worried for some reason that I’m gonna think you’re a manwhore for wanting sex before some kind of arbitrary relationship deadline, then you should sign up for a lobotomy.  Sex is frigging great.  The end.  I don’t know why people make such a big fucking fuss about it.  If we all just admitted we want it and allowed ourselves to have it, I think everybody’d feel a lot better most of the time.”

Roy swallows, not without difficulty.  “I never want you to feel like I’m pressuring you, and… I’ve found in the past that my rather exaggerated reputation can create its own expectations.”

Ed grins at him, fearlessly.  “I’ve been saying ‘fuck your expectations’ since I was twelve, Roy.”

And he has to admit: “Verbatim, usually.”  Deep breaths.  “I would hate for you to think less of me.”

Ed snorts, rather loudly.  Then he eyes Roy for a moment, and then he worries at his lip and considers the rather broad expanse of dining table between them.

“This feels like a report,” he says.  “We gotta take this _all_ the way out of the office if we’re gonna do it.  I think you know that.  And I think you’re scared, and I’m _glad_ , okay, because I’m scared, too; this shit is—”  He gestures unhelpfully to his chest with both hands.  “—crazy, it’s _big_ , it’s… it owns me, not the other way around.  I can only imagine how much _you_ hate that, given that you’re a giant control freak and all.”

“You should write love songs,” Roy says.

Ed snickers.  “I’m gonna give you something better to do with that smart mouth of yours in a minute.”  He shoves his chair back and stands.  “C’mon.  We’re talking about this on the couch.”

Roy gets to his feet somewhat more gracefully—but Ed’s right, in that way; most of what others see as grace and suavity is actually single-minded, unrelenting _control_.  “Let me clear the table.  It’ll just be a moment.”  Ed opens his mouth to protest, and… and Roy has a _claim_ to that mouth now; the revelation spirals into his brain and settles and gleams.  “If you dig behind the rightmost couch cushion, there’s a flask of whiskey.  That is the first secret of your secret assignment.”

“If you get me drunk and ravish me, I _will_ kill you,” Ed says, taking up his plate instead of starting for the living room.  After a moment’s thought, he balls up his napkin (linen, of course; a few years ago Ed probably would have mocked mercilessly and worn it as a cape) and takes his glass carefully in the metal hand in order to carry everything to the sink.

Is there a specific region of hell for madmen who try to domesticate an Elric?

“And you’re wrong,” Ed says.  “The first secret is that you’re a total doof, and I figured that out a while ago.”

“I don’t believe that ‘doof’ is a legitimate word,” Roy says.

Ed’s voice is downright cheerful.  “Well, you’re a legitimate _bastard_ , so there we are.”

Roy wipes his face completely blank and measures the words: “‘Legitimate bastard’ is an oxymoron, Edward.”

Ed stares at him, poised to drop everything into the sink and bolt, which probably qualifies as ‘washing up’ in the Elric household.  “Oh, I am gonna break this plate over your _head_.  And then transmute it back and break it _again_.”

Roy joins him by the sink; simply being elbow-to-elbow with him, sleeves pushed up, makes Roy’s heart flit, and it is _staggering_ to be so far gone.  “Surely you wouldn’t abuse innocent tableware just to make a point.”

“It’s your tableware,” Ed says.  “None of your shit is innocent.”

Roy rinses his own dishes first.  “My cutlery, at _least_ , must be blameless.”

Ed’s whole face is twitching with the effort of suppressing a smile.  “You kidding?  You think I’m letting your _knives_ off the hook?”

“You can’t possibly have anything against my spoons,” Roy says.  He pulls open the silverware drawer and sweeps a hand to indicate.  “Perfectly harmless.  They look like they’re sleeping.”

Ed’s chest jumps, and half of a laugh bubbles out despite his efforts to contain it.  He presses his fist over his mouth, and his eyes— _dance_.  That’s the only word for it.

“Sleeping,” he says.  “Your fucking spoons are fucking _sleeping_.”

Roy lets his grin out slowly, and it feels like the sun’s rising in his ribcage.  “I… think I understand the meaning of ‘doof’ now.”

“I guess even dumbasses can be taught,” Ed says delightedly.  “Now come _on_ , we were having a conversation.  Jeez, no wonder you’re in politics; you’re like a fucking eel sometimes.”

“I can only hope I am not like an eel when fucking,” Roy says, which is—surprising, to say the least; he’s already starting to _sound_ like Ed.

“Couch,” Ed says, grabbing Roy’s wrist with the automail hand.  With his typical easily-underestimated strength, he hauls Roy through to the living room and drops them both heavily onto the couch cushions.  “Where were we?”

“I’m still adjusting to the idea that you don’t find me infuriating,” Roy says.

Ed has not released Roy’s wrist and keeps holding onto it even as he works up a whole new scowl.  “I do find you infuriating.  Of course I find you infuriating.  It’s just that I _like_ it.  Sometimes you’re so thick I think we should insulate houses with y—”

“I don’t want you to think that I’m weak,” Roy says.  “Neither do I want you to think I’m shallow.  And as far as my rather amusing infamy as the country’s greatest womanizer—that has two edges, Edward.  People expect me to be a revelation, and I’m not.  I mean, I…”  So rarely does he find himself without a wealth of available words—smooth words, tricky words, circling words, words that soothe ears and move limbs and change minds—that this sudden poverty is bewildering.  “I… hope that you _will_ find me to be a… revelation, after all is said and done, because that’s what you are to me, but I don’t want you to _expect_ …” He blinks, runs the hand Ed hasn’t trapped through his own hair, and then drags it down his face.  “This is impossible.”

“Impossible,” Ed says, and his eyes glitter, “is making fire out of thin air and a spark.  Impossible is killing not one, but _two_ monsters that can’t die.  Impossible is staging a coup in a military state that’s actually run by an alchemically-overpowered lunatic-freak with a beard.  Impossible is being blind and then not.  Aren’t you fucking _bored_ of impossible?”

“It’s difficult,” Roy says, steadying his gaze by force of will as Ed’s cold fingers tighten on his forearm, “not to fear that I’m taking advantage.”

Ed… smirks.  Of course Ed hears Roy Mustang confess to _fear_ , and this is how he greets the admission.

But then it softens into something fonder.

“Okay,” Ed says, “first off, you of all people should know better than anyone what happens when somebody tries to get me to do something I really don’t want to.”

“Fair point,” Roy says slowly.

Ed’s eyebrows arch.  “Second, you of all people should know that occasionally all somebody has to do is _mention_ me getting a promotion, and I lose my shit.”

This is not a humorous hyperbole.  It took several minutes of high-caliber wheedling to convince Lieutenant-Colonel Bayer that Ed did not intend him any physical harm, and Roy isn’t sure the automail-grip wrinkles will ever come out of that tie.

“So you know it’s not me scheming or anything.  The only reason for me to be here is that I _want_ to be here.”

 _Or,_ Roy thinks, _to start a fling, take notes, take pictures, get out quick and never look back, wait for my campaign, sell it all to the tabloids and make a_ fortune _from the scandal, then retire—_

But that’s insultingly stupid of him, even by Roy’s rather vigorous standards for stupidity.  This is _Ed_.  There’s no underhanded master plan with Ed; there’s no ulterior motive; there’s no malice at all.  With Ed, there’s just the give and take—the give and receive, really.  There’s just the exchange.

And if he sees how much it costs Roy to collect the words he speaks next, the sacrifice will be tallied with the whole of the universe on Ed’s mental ledger, and one of these days it will pay a return.

Roy takes a deep breath and holds himself upright.  “I have wanted you for so long,” he says, “and with such _fierceness_ , that I am at your mercy now.  I haven’t been this vulnerable in a long time.  Frankly, I’m terrified.”

He weighed the choices, and for Ed’s benefit—not to protect himself, but to prevent himself from levying an obligation—he decided not to utter the word “love” on their second not-quite-a-date.  He can’t force that on a seventeen-year-old.

“Frankly,” Ed says, grin sharp but somehow gentle, “you’re a dumbass.  And a _lousy_ date—this is supposed to be fun, isn’t it?  You, me, fish for dinner, slugs of whiskey on the couch, tipsy sex?”

The tingling surges through Roy to the tips of his fingers, and it beats—beats—beats.  “I won’t be tipsy; I want to be lucid enough to remember every second.”

Ed flutters his eyelashes, which somehow looks silly and stomach-droppingly dangerous at once.  “I bet you say that to all the cute young subordinate officers.”

“Not funny,” Roy says.  “But I’m glad you know you’re cute.”

“Nah,” Ed says, shifting, slinging himself up onto his knees.  “I’m not cute.  I’m not pretty.  I’m torn up and jammed back together, and Winry’s the best at making people out of metal, but even she can’t fix me up into something whole.  But it’s okay, y’know.  ’Cause with Ling and Greed—I mean, nowhere in the _world_ are you gonna find two guys more fucking obsessed with sex and aesthetics and preferably both at once—I learned that I don’t need to be cute.”  His eyes _blaze_ , and he slips along the couch like mercury, hiking one leg over both of Roy’s to straddle his hips—  “I can be sexy as _hell_ , and that’s enough.”

“That’s—” Roy swallows, hard.  “I—think ‘enough’ might be understating matters a bit.”

Ed cocks his head and grinds his hips, and Roy’s brain hands in its resignation once and for all.

It’s over after that, although really it’s been over for a long time.

Roy curls his right hand around Ed’s warm shoulder, flattens the other against his neck, drags him in like the pull of the tide and kisses him dizzy, kisses them _both_ dizzy, works his mouth open, tastes his tongue, drinks him in, pushes, presses, rocks his body up towards Ed’s and _devours_ the gasp of breath.

Ed draws back panting, and the grin is bright and ravenous.  “Fuckin’ _hell_ , you’ve been holding out on me.”

“Of course I have,” Roy says over the trot-now-canter-now-gallop of his heart in his unsteady chest.  “It’s frowned upon to initiate wild sex in public.”

“‘Wild’, huh?”  Ed twists the automail hand into Roy’s shirtfront, draws him closer, looks at him with half-lidded predator’s eyes, and runs that _tongue_ over that _lip_.  “Is that a promise?”

“You bet your exquisitely well-shaped ass it is,” Roy says—and the flare of delight in those eyes is even better than the lust.

“If you like it so much,” Ed says—Ed _growls_ , teeth bared inches from Roy’s throat, “why haven’t you gotten your hands on it yet?”

Roy tilts his head to admire Ed’s blazing ferocity from behind his eyelashes.  Ed’s wrong, of course; he’s far too grandiose and far too ethereal and far too brazen and far too _fine_ to be anything less than stunning.  Goldspun hair and flashing eyes and so many sharp and perfect lines—sexy, yes; beautiful, _God_ , yes.

“I’m trying to be a gentleman,” Roy says.

Ed fights down a laugh.  “Well, fuck you.”  He leans in and breathes against Roy’s jaw.  “Fuck you, _please_ , General.”

As Roy swallows and swallows again, his throat moves against Ed’s lips, and _shit_ , he’s not sure if he’s ever been this violently turned-on in his entire life.  And he can’t just— _drop_ , can’t just let it out, can’t just give in and come quick and sharp and violent like he’s under attack, because this is _Edward Elric_ , and he has to make it good, has to make it the _best_ , has to make it so mind-blowingly marvelous that Ed forgets he ever slept with the emperor of fucking Xing and/or an insatiable immortal being—

Ed hisses against his carotid artery, and goosebumps have never felt so good.  “What the fuck are you doing _thinking_ when I’m trying to _seduce_ you?”

“I’m thinking,” Roy says, “about how I’m going to seduce you instead.”

There had been a time, years ago, too many years ago, when the acquaintance was new and diamond-edged in its absoluteness, that Hughes had laughed at some sally of Roy’s and said _You have all the answers, don’t you?_

And Roy had known in his gut what Hughes would mean to him, and with rare bravery he’d said _Not one—I’m just good at avoiding the questions._

“Yeah, well…” Ed’s mouth ghosts down Roy’s neck again; he noses Roy’s collar out of the way.  Ling said he _bites_ , and Roy is confused to find himself eager instead of unsettled; never has he been so _excited_ for physical pain.  “You’re the one whose career’s at stake and shit, so I should be the one coaxing you away from the path of righteousness and whatever.”

“You’re the most righteous person I’ve ever met.”

“What?  Am not.”

“And the loveliest by far.”

“Eew, fuck.  You’re such a _sop_.”

“Is a sop the same thing as a doof?”

Ed laughs, all hot breath on Roy’s throat and rhythmic vibration against his chest.  “You crazy _bastard_.  Am I gonna have to get _you_ drunk and ravish you?”

Roy raises his hands, which feel extraordinarily light, and slides his fingers into Ed’s hair.  He tilts Ed’s head gently and kisses slowly and with parted lips up the side of Ed’s neck, exhaling softly on the damp spots as he goes.  “Like I said, I’d rather be sober.”

Ed arches his back, and his body cinches forward, and his hips are pressed _hard_ into Roy’s—their bodies crushed close, Ed’s hair hanging down over Roy’s hands and brushing against his face, his knees drawn in tight on either side of Roy’s thighs, and Roy’s trousers are quickly becoming _unbearable_.

“Couch?” Ed asks, panting lightly, hands trailing up Roy’s sides before they find the fastenings of the uniform.  “Never done it on a couch.”

Roy considers; he’s long since assessed every possible surface in the house.  This has to be _perfect_ , has to be the be-all and the end-all and the need-no-more.  He needs leverage, comfort, control; he needs to be on the most advantageous possible territory.  Most battles hinge on the terrain.

“Bed,” he murmurs.  “I bought new sheets right before we left, and I haven’t had nearly enough time to rumple them.”

The grin lights like a sharp crescent moon just above him as he kisses at Ed’s jaw, as Ed’s fingers unhook the uniform catches slowly and slip the buttons free.  “Cool.  I’ve never done it on a bed either.”

Roy pauses and draws back to stare at him.

“What?” Ed asks.  “Not a whole lot of hotels out in the middle of the forest, y’know.”

“Bed, then,” Roy says, shifting them before he can protest, wrapping one arm under that brain-obliterating ass, levering them up and trying not to stagger at the unbalanced weight.  “You’re in for a treat.”

To his credit, perhaps as a sign of his good faith, Ed slings both arms around Roy’s neck and jimmies his weight closer.  _God_ , having a beautiful young thing’s hot, straining erection pressed to his stomach does not make it easier for Roy to walk, but he clings to Ed and attempts to keep moving steadily, and he manages to direct his weak-kneed stumble out of the living room and towards the stairs.  Ed nudges his nose at Roy’s ear, coiling closer around him—always _closer_ , always tighter, like there’s something to lose.

“Isn’t the bed kind of boring?” Ed asks.

“No,” Roy says, feeling rather short of breath now, which he’d announce in so many words if he wanted to be struck with a metal palm.  “It’s _classic_.”

Ed touches his tongue to Roy’s earlobe experimentally.  “Classic.”

Stairs.  Who invented these fucking things?  Roy lays a hand on the small of Ed’s back, savoring the gentle curve, and finds some dogged determination underneath his raging heartbeat.  Stairs will not stop him.  “There’s a reason—there are a number of reasons—why it’s the default choice.”

“Yeah?” Ed murmurs, teeth grazing a vein in Roy’s neck—the shiver wracks Roy so hard that he thinks for a moment that he’s about to deposit Ed unceremoniously on the floor of the hall.  “Why, then?”

Roy shoulders through the bedroom door, crosses the too-vast expanse of the floor, pries the metal arm from around himself, and tosses Ed down on the mattress.

Shock first, like a cold splash at the impact—and then the ripples, and Ed’s pupils dilate, and his whole body twitches up towards Roy.

“Oh,” he says.  “Classic.”

“Classic,” Roy says, climbing up over him.  He needs to get the boots off soon; needs to get the _socks_ off after that; there’s not a damn thing sexy about socks; if they weren’t so useful on an ordinary day, he’d outlaw them and be done with it— “And… comfortable.”  He smoothes his hands down Ed’s quick-rising chest, undoes the buttons of his shirt from the bottom up—seven, six, five, four, threetwo _oh_ —and drags his spread fingers slowly from collarbones back down to belt.  “Good give to a mattress.  Sufficient space.”  Ed makes a weak noise, head tossing back, as Roy ducks down to lick slowly up his breastbone.  “Blankets for climate control.  Pillows expand the possibilities for range and angles of motion.”  Ed pants at the ceiling, and Roy noses along the join of the automail shoulder, following it upward to the tendons tightening in Ed’s neck.  “Best of all,” he whispers to the skin, “we don’t have to move afterwards.”  He nips the curve of Ed’s ear and then wets the pulsing artery beneath it with his tongue.  “Not that you’ll be able to.”

“Fuck,” Ed gasps out, writhing already, straining underneath him—as he arches his back, their chests meet, and for a second Roy could swear their hearts are synchronized.  “Shut up and—no, don’t shut up, just—just—holy _crap_ , Roy—”

Roy mouths his way down to a nipple; merely breathes.  “I shall endeavor to take that as a compliment.”

“You sexy piece of _shit_ —”

His soft laughter against Ed’s skin makes Ed _squirm_.  “That will take less endeavoring.”

Ed draws a deep breath; Roy trails his tongue over the nipple _so_ lightly; Ed’s breath reemerges as a whine.  “F-fucking—tease—”

“Teasing and foreplay are not the same thing,” Roy murmurs, moving his damp lips as much as possible against Ed’s ribs.

“They are when— _hnnh_ —” Evidently Ed approves of Roy’s thumbs pressing in to grip his hipbones. “—when you’re—fumblin’ in the fucking forest—back in the day—”

“Or fucking in the fumbling forest?”  Roy wishes it wasn’t a bit of a brain-splattering turn-on thinking of Ling rutting against Ed on the moss, on the leaves, in the dirt, probably covering Ed’s mouth with one hand, probably risking having that hand chewed off at the wrist.  “I’m impressed at your alliterative powers given the…” He stills his shaky hands by force of will and unbuckles Ed’s belt, mouthing downwards past the mess of pale scar tissue on the boy’s side.  “…circumstances.”

Ed’s hips jerk up off the bed; he bites his bottom lip hard and sucks a breath in through his teeth.  “Fuck,” he hisses out, and Roy glances up again and sees that he’s grinning.  “I fucking—love—your _voice_ —”

Roy’s spine prickles, and it’s a wonder that his trousers aren’t _on fire_.  “Why, Fullmetal,” he purrs, mouth to the skin of Ed’s beautiful abdomen, as he slides the belt free, “what a delicious divulgence.”

“Oh, shit, _yeah_ —” Ed’s back arches; the belt’s buckle jingles merrily as Roy hurls it over one shoulder, completely indifferent to its destination.  He opens the fly of Ed’s trousers and starts peeling them down as slowly as he can _stand_ , and Ed rewards his patience with a desperate whimper.  “ _Fuck_ —I don’t even—like long words, but—you—the way you talk—”

“Good Lord, Ed,” Roy says into the track of coarse gold hairs leading tantalizingly downward from a really quite adorable navel.  “The way you _are_.”

Ed loosens one fist from clutching the comforter and curls it into Roy’s hair instead—he tugs just a little too hard, and it’s perfect.

So is his broad, bright-eyed, _hungry_ grin.

“Get naked,” he says.  “Sorry—get naked, _sir_.”

Roy traces curlicues around Ed’s hipbones with his fingernails, fighting to keep his face blank, pretending that all of the organs south of his diaphragm haven’t liquefied.  “What’s the magic word?”

“Oh,” Ed says, and there’s a vicious tilt to the grin now.  “I beg your _pardon_ , General.  Get naked, sir, _or else_.”

As it turns out, those words are pretty magic.  Roy was growing rather weary of his uniform anyway; the trousers don’t fit right, and the jacket is much too warm.  He’s downright relieved to rid himself of the boots and those damned un-sexy _socks_.

And when he straightens, in just his disheveled shirt and a pair of underwear that does nothing whatsoever to hide his throbbingly intense interest in the half-exposed young man on his bed, Ed is watching him with smoldering eyes and a satisfied smirk.

“Just a moment,” Roy says as Ed’s personal gravity _hauls_ him back in.  He would never have believed his mouth could produce so much saliva—certainly not so soon after their stint of hellishness in the desert—but it just keeps watering as he follows the contours of Ed’s chest down his stomach again, down to the selfish fabric that hides the rest.

Roy shifts back off the bed and crouches—less-than-comfortably—on the floor as he tugs Ed’s trousers down over his thighs, over his knees, over his calves.  Beautiful gold and silver boy with his beautiful scar-speckled skin and his breathtaking tight-muscled _shape_ —Roy can’t keep his hands off, can’t keep his mouth to himself, wants to touch and taste every centimeter, from the deep grooves of the automail to the back of the flesh knee to the tip of the toes that wiggle playfully as he yanks the sock out of the way.

He looks up to Ed, who is propped up on his elbows and grinning again.

“You really don’t know,” Roy says, wrapping his right hand around the flesh thigh and his left around the automail foot with all of its marvelous articulation.  “You really don’t know how extraordinary you are.”

The uneven shrug tips Ed’s unbuttoned shirt to slide down off of his right shoulder.  “I just do the shit that needs to get done.”

“You could have anyone,” Roy says, meaning it, gazing up at an idol who’s said _All yours!_ and added _If you want it_ in anticipation of doubt.  “You could have any _thing_ , Edward; you… are beyond the world I thought I lived in.  You’re somewhere between aspiration and fantasy—and a salacious fantasy at that.  You… I snap my fingers, and there’s a bit of flame; a snap of yours could bring the country to its knees.”

“You’re crazy,” Ed says, and by his tone Roy can tell he thinks it’s flattery instead of truth.  “And I don’t give a fuck about anybody being on their knees for me.”

“Oh?” Roy says.

Whatever Ed was going to say turns into a hoarse moan as Roy kneels, leans in, and licks slowly up the underside of his cock.

The universe must be fair if it has sex in it—if it has sex with _Ed_ in it, it is unequivocally kind.  Perhaps Roy is dreaming this, or he died a while back, or… honestly, he doesn’t care.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Ed grits out, fisting both hands in the sheets as his hips jerk, as his toes curl, and Roy doesn’t know if he’s ever appreciated the simple magic of the human body this much.  “Damn it, I just—I never thought—we’d actually—I thought I was stupid for hoping—”

Roy pauses in mouthing and lathing and drawing wavy lines with the tip of his tongue.  “It’s never stupid to hope.”

Ed drops his head back to the mattress, twisting the sheets in his hands; he’s going to tear straight through them in a minute.  “S’what—Al said—perfect little fucker knows everything—”

Roy massages at Ed’s thighs and breathes softly against his glorious erection.  “He is uncannily prescient.”

Ed’s hips jolt up again, and he hisses a breath out through clenched teeth.

Roy can’t help but take that as encouragement, and it’s not as though he’s wanting for incentive—he digs his fingertips into the flesh of Ed’s thighs, wets his lips, and takes Ed all the way down.

That gasped-out squeak is new.  That gasped-out squeak is new and _good_ , and it summons another violent pulse of heat in Roy’s woefully unattended groin.  He seals his lips around Ed’s really very lovely cock and sucks hard, monitoring Ed’s reaction through the trailing curtain of his own hair.

As usual, Ed doesn’t disappoint—his whole body contorts, from furrowed forehead to spasming right foot.

“D-don’t—” He drags in a deep breath, spine arcing off of the mattress, fingers clawing at the sheets.

Much as Roy wants to hear whatever it is that’s important enough to say in the middle of _receiving a blowjob_ , twisting his tongue and drinking in the particular musk of Edward Elric’s nether regions is a much more compelling prospect.

Ed frees his right hand from the bedclothes and fists it in Roy’s hair, and Roy does hesitate at that, if only because his self-preservation instincts recognize that the battle between his hair follicles and the automail would be bloody and brief.

Will the moment Ed’s eyes trap his always make his heart stutter like this?  It should be a terrifying thought.

“I’m gonna lose it in a minute if you keep that up,” Ed says, and his grin’s evasive—tentative?

“Excellent,” Roy says, trailing his thumbs feather-lightly over the insides of Ed’s thighs, savoring the answering twinge of the muscles under the skin.  “When I was your age—”

Ed chokes out a laugh.  “Don’t _start_ —”

“—I could orgasm twice in ten minutes, so I’m sure you’re up to the task.”

Ed… moans.  It’s a visceral sound that builds in his chest and _rattles_ out of his throat, and Roy trembles with it, trembles with the power, trembles with the willful abandon.  It’s a beautiful thing.  Ed on his back, bared and trusting—it’s dizzying to be allowed this, to be _invited_ to it—

The throb of desperate want-need-worship has spread to every cell, to every atom; Roy Mustang is nothing more or less than desire now, and at the moment that feels like enough.  He wishes, as he draws Ed into his mouth again, pressing upward with his tongue, that he could dissolve himself into a mist, an entity; that he could wrap his tendrils around every inch of this writhing body and seep into its pores; that he could own each centimeter and instill the caliber of _feeling_ that’s coursing through his every vein.  He wishes he wasn’t limited to tongue and guarded teeth and wandering hands; he wishes he could be _more_ than that, and purer, because Ed—oh, God, Ed deserves perfection, sublimity, absoluteness, absolution—

Roy bobs his head, works his tongue, faster, feverish.

Ed deserves the world on a platter, and he could _have_ it, somewhere other than here.  He deserves for this to make him whole.

“R-Roy—”

Ed’s body drops, rises, undulates; scars gleam in the light; the knuckles of his flesh hand are whiter than the bedsheets; he hisses in a breath, and it sticks in his throat.

Roy hums softly in affirmation, as permission, and Ed’s body somehow tightens even more, stomach taut, hips straining—

“ _Fuck_ —ahh—”

And Ed comes with his head thrown back and his thighs shaking under Roy’s palms; Roy bests his body’s impulse to gag—he swallows, swallows again, licks Ed clean, takes his slackening cock in hand and lowers it gently to the bed.  It won’t be there long.

“Shit,” Ed says, breath still quick and a bit unsteady.  “I—never—I mean, Ling used to… spit.  Something about—not ingesting another person’s qi or some shit.”

Roy folds his arms across Ed’s knees and rests his chin on them.  Slowly and pointedly he licks his lips.  “I have no objection to cultural differences.”  Ed makes a faint noise, gaze glued to him.  “That said—” Roy breathes against the crease of Ed’s thigh and can’t help smirking at the way the shiver ripples up through Ed’s chest and slips from his mouth as a gasp. “—I find that I rather like the idea of consuming your essence.”

“Crazy bastard,” Ed says, panting.  “Do me a f-favor and quit t-teasing.”

“I will always—” Roy kisses down the tender skin on the inside of Ed’s right leg, lingering by his knee.  It’s possible that this is the only unmarred skin on his body; he gives himself up to scars so _willingly_.  “—be happy—” It’s a leisurely steel-cold journey back up the other leg. “—to do you a _favor_.”

Ed fists the automail hand in Roy’s hair again and grins slowly, eyes half-closed and _devastating_.  “Quit fucking around and fuck me,” he says.

“You have such a way with words,” Roy says.

“Thanks,” Ed says.  “How about you shut up and have your way with _me_?”

The part of Roy that cowers away from the future wishes he had the presence of mind and the strength of will to resist.  The rest of him, of course, is overcome and overwhelmed; fuck propriety; he has _Edward Elric_ writhing naked on his sheets.  In this moment, with the blood searing recklessly through his veins, with the heat coursing through his stomach and his heart with equal fervor, with the light glinting bright bronze off of the damp hair on Ed’s forehead—the universe is inimitable.  Everything is perfect.  All he has, all he _really_ has, is now; he can’t waste this in fear of what _might_ unfold tomorrow, next week, a year on, ten years on—

“Well,” he says.  “When you put it like _that_ , how can I possibly refuse?”

“You can’t,” Ed says, angling those mouth-wateringly sharp hips up towards him and flashing another knife-blade grin.  “So don’t try.”

It’s so easy, with Ed—so easy to be, to want, to give, to breathe, to _live_.  Doesn’t that mean something in and of itself?  Ed’s so blissfully shameless that there can’t be anything wrong in this.  Roy has to remember that—that Ed’s faultless judgment extends to _this_ and to _him_.

It’s so easy to let go, to tumble into Ed entirely, to sink and drown in liquid gold; even the clumsy, quotidian mechanics feel remarkable this time.  The excavation of the nightstand drawer; the slippery fingers; the moment of realization that slippery fingers and clean pillowcases are a wretched combination; the squirming towards the headboard; the settling; the resettling; the positioning; the repositioning—Ed grins, swears, rolls his eyes, rolls his hips, _laughs_ until he’s breathless.  Ed makes it all so fucking _simple_.  This is a matter of _them_ , together, emotion becoming physicality; this is _them_ , melting at the edges, sharing sweat to let their hearts brush close.  This is _fun_ , and there’s no assessment at the end; there’s no accountability; there’s no obligation.  This is two people who want to be one for a while.

And good _Lord_ , but Roy almost comes on the spot when Ed grabs his wrist and pushes his fingers in deeper.

“Right—” Ed’s jaw tightens; his eyelids flutter; his flesh toes curl, and the metal ones twitch.  “— _rightfuckingthere_ —” The moan that slips out before he bites his lip qualifies as much more than merely ‘pornographic’; it sails straight into ‘heavenly’.  “Just—remember that—”

Roy doubts he will ever forget.

Every time he thinks this can’t get more wondrous, it does.  Ed in the flesh—in the beautiful, soft, hot, salty flesh—is even more flexible than his counterpart in Roy’s fantasies ever dared to be.  His metal fingertips are soothingly cool and surprisingly gentle as they skim across Roy’s chest.  There is something indescribably welcoming about the way he wraps his legs around Roy’s waist, and there’s something extremely wicked in his grin—

He snaps his hips against Roy’s, shuffles their bodies closer, hisses through his teeth at the way Roy’s cock grazes his gorgeous ass.  He fists the flesh hand in Roy’s hair and drags him down into a wet, messy, sloppy kiss; he groans softly into Roy’s mouth and mumbles, “Will you just— _just_ —”

“Yes,” Roy says, and Ed’s breath is hot and sweet and smooth as it slides down his throat.

Gathering his wits, clutching his cock, guiding it to align, and pushing into Ed’s glorious ass is not quite as effortless, of course, but good _God_ , is it worth it; his brain bursts into confetti, and his stomach fills with magma; there’s a distinct possibility that nothing in Roy’s life has ever _been_ so worthwhile—

“Oh,” he says, sounding faint even to his own ears.

Ed laughs breathlessly.  “I think y’meant—” His voice lilts into a slightly higher register, and his spine arches slowly off of the bed— “ _Oh-h-h-h_ …”

Roy’s whole body clenches at that sound; for a long moment, everything just _halts_.  Time is not passing; the planet is not turning; all that exists is _Ed_.

When everything jolts back into motion again, he’s moving, too.  It’s an old rhythm, primal, familiar—but it’s _new_ , with Ed, as everything is new; everything around him gleams just reflecting his brightness.  It’s all different—the scrape of his automail heel down Roy’s back, the bruising grip of steel fingers, the caught breath, the splayed hair—it’s all unprecedented, and it’s all exquisite, and it’s taking over everything that remained of Roy.

It’s the most beautiful pattern, the simplest, the finest, the best—pleasure- _more_ , pleasure- _more_ , gasp- _groan_ , fight- _fall_ , further- _closer_ , air- _flesh_ , pleasure— _more_ —

The lightning racing underneath Roy’s skin stutters to the ends of his fingertips, sends them dancing over Ed’s damp skin, and then circles back; it fuels itself; it _hungers_ —

He has just enough self-awareness left to know that he doesn’t ever want this to end; and at the same time to know that he’d _die_ for a taste of oblivion; they’re so close to the precipice of the infinite—

Anyone who doesn’t think sex is an act of religion hasn’t had nearly enough of it.

The one thing his brain clings to is _remember that_ , the order-plea that binds them; that blinds him as the sparks converge—but he has to—surely— _Ed, Edward, feel this, feel this, feel this half as much as I do_ —

He shifts his hips and pins Ed’s metal shoulder to the mattress and comes clenching a fistful of Ed’s hair; he kisses the wet mouth _hard_ as he crashes down; the white-hot ecstasy racks him, rips through him, forces him closer _still_ , and he must be so very, very, _very_ nea—

“Oh, holy _fuck_!”

—ah.

The splatter of heat on both their stomachs is strangely soothing—maybe it’s the intimacy; maybe it’s the trust; maybe Roy really is as sick a fuck as he often suspects.  Letting all of the half-shredded pieces of himself twist into some semblance of order has sometimes been the only way to survive.

The urge to collapse onto Ed’s warm body and never move again is extremely compelling, especially given the way all of his joints have turned to jelly in the afterglow, but he forces himself to focus.  Ed swallows, draws a deep breath that fills his chest until his steel shoulder grazes Roy’s wrist, and opens his eyes.

“Well,” he says.

His face is unreadable.  When did he learn to do that?  Roy’s ribs seem to be curling inward; won’t the sharp ends of the lowest ones pierce something vital?

“‘Well’?” he prompts.

“I thought you’d be overrated,” Ed says.  “Y’know, the way people talk.  Either that, or I thought most of ’em were full of shit, and you’d practically be a virgin.  But, uh…” His tongue darts over his upper lip, and his eyes shift sideways, and he picks at the edge of the pillowcase with his metal fingers.  “We should… do that again sometime.”

Roy brushes Ed’s bangs back with a fingertip.  “Like every day of my life, perhaps?”

“I can’t’ve—”

“You are spectacular,” Roy says.  “In everything, apparently including the bed.  If I’m very fortunate, I hope to discover whether this assessment also includes the bath, the shower, and possibly the kitchen table.”

Ed’s eyes widen a little, and he makes a faint noise in the back of his throat.  “That’d—sure.  Um.”

Roy leans in to kiss him, softly, gently, sweetly; what they just concluded was inimitable, but it could have been more affectionate.  If Roy had more control… well, if Roy had more control, they probably wouldn’t be here, so at this point control can go hang.

“Mmm,” Ed says when Roy draws back.  “Holy crap, I’m sleepy.”

“I will take that as a compliment,” Roy says.  Ed blinks heavy eyelashes at him.  “I’m going to step into the shower and then brush my teeth, and you should do the same so that your brother doesn’t execute me for letting you get cavities.”

“Winry’d get to you first,” Ed says, stretching luxuriantly, hair pooling all over the pillow.  “Woman’s a tyrant.  Better not let her try f’r Führer, either; she’d brain you with a wrench and win by default or somethin’.”

Roy convinces his wobbly limbs to carry him off of the bed and hold him upright, at which point he reaches out for Ed’s hands.  “We’d better make sure you floss, too.  I’d look ridiculous with an imprint of a wrench in my skull.”

“You’d probably still be hot,” Ed says, grabbing one of Roy’s hands with his left and beginning an ungainly crawl-scrabble towards the edge of the bed.  “Fuck, just got cum all over your sheets.  Forest is better for some things.”

Ed stands and then promptly sways; Roy catches his shoulders to steady him.  “Not for post-coital cuddling, though.”

Ed’s hazy eyes light up.  “Are we gonna get to do some of that?”

“If you like,” Roy says, bundling him into a spare bathrobe several sizes too big—which is heart-rendingly adorable to say the least—before finding his own.

“Awesome,” Ed says, padding out into the hall.  “C’mon, let’s get the oral hygiene over with.  It’s much more fun being orally dirty anyway.  When do I need to be out of here by?”

Roy is bewildered by more than just the preposition at the end of that sentence.  “I beg your pardon?”

Ed glances back over his shoulder from the bathroom doorway.  “How long do we have before I gotta leave?”

“You don’t have to leave,” Roy says, and the beat of his pulse in his body says _Ever, ever, ever_.  Ed’s eyes narrow fractionally, but other than that his face stays blank, so Roy lays down the trump card.  “I’ll make breakfast.”

The grin splits Ed’s face like lightning.  “You got yourself a deal.”

 

* * *

 

Monday morning, ten minutes after ten, the door slams open so hard that it’s rebounded off the wall before Roy has even raised his head.

“Whadd’ya got for me?” Ed asks.

Roy folds his hands on the desk blotter, waits for Ed to notice the _mountain_ of books stacked beside it, and offers his most sphinx-like smile.

Ed doesn’t take long.  His assessment of the towers of literature is half one of excitement, because books are Ed’s oldest and most reliable friend excepting Alphonse alone; and half one of wariness, because _bastard_ Mustang wouldn’t give him books without a catch.

“Ten months remain until your contract comes up for renewal,” Roy says.

The first finger of Ed’s right hand twitches in what might just be a page-turning motion, but he hasn’t stepped any nearer to the desk.  “If by ‘comes up for renewal’, you mean ‘fuck this, I’m out of here’, then yeah, you and I are both watching the clock.  What’s your point?”

Roy makes a show of pretending to consider the prospect for the first time.  “Tragic.  The office will be so dull and efficient without you storming in and stirring up paperwork.”

“If that’s why you called me in, I’m gonna break into your house and transmute all your underwear three sizes too small.”

Roy must not think about Ed handling his underwear.  “At least writing you up for that would be a nice break from ‘Major Elric seems to have interpreted _peacekeeping_ as _demolition_ again; I have scrounged the budget for compensation accordingly’.”

Ed bares his teeth to hide a flicker of a grin.  “What the fuck do you _want_ , Mustang?”

Roy tugs on his right sleeve to adjust it against his wrist.  “I want you to become the Amestrian military’s expert on alkahestry.”

At the enduring silence, he glances up and almost startles, because Ed looks—stunned, hurt, furious, horrified.

He bites out the words like they’re chunks of ice.  “You’re sending me to _Xing_?”

Roy does not say _What?  Ed, oh, dear Lord, no—do you really think I’m strong enough to deprive myself of you, whatever might be right?_

He says, “Of course I’m not.  I want you to learn alkahestry _here_.”

Ed blinks.  “In—your offi—”

“In the _library_.  Or at your apartment, or at Lieutenant Havoc’s desk; I don’t care.  Sergeant Fuery has the postage slip for you to collect the basic alkahestry textbooks that Miss Chang recommended, which arrived this morning.”

Ed stares at him.  “Aren’t they gonna be in Xingese?”

“They are,” Roy says.  He lays a hand on the nearest tower of tomes.  “Which is why I’ve brought you my Xingese books.”

Ed stares a little harder.  He blinks, slowly.  “You… want me… to learn _Xingese_ … so I can learn _alkahestry_.  In ten months.”

Roy steeples his hands again.  “Actually, to maximize the investment, I’d prefer that you do it in half that time.”  He smiles sweetly.  “If you think that will be too _difficult_ , of course, I’ll underst—”

“Fuck you!”  Ed doesn’t _speak_ the expletive so much as _release_ it.  “Just for that, I’ll learn fucking Flame Alchemy too, and then I will _burn off your balls_ , Mustang.”

“Please don’t,” Roy says.  “The mere abstract thought of your pyromania unleashed is going to keep me up at night.”  He pauses, gauging Ed’s scowl and touching the creased spine of the closest volume.  “It occurred to me while we were in Xing that your talents might be… underutilized of late.  That I might not be pushing you towards your admittedly incalculable potential, which is one of the less-trumpeted duties of a superior officer—that I might, in fact, be holding you back.  Investigating an entirely new branch of alchemical science, especially in advance of the international relations revolution I have planned, sounded like a much better use of your abilities.”

Ed eyes him for a long moment.  “You gonna put that in your book of aphorisms?  ‘Know your enemy; know your diplomatic friend even better in case he stops being your friend later, and you have to kick his ass’?”

“Hopefully I will find pithier wording by the time it goes to press,” Roy says.

Ed shoves his hands into his pockets and kicks at the carpet.  “Two questions.”

“Fire away.”

“Har, har.  What the hell are you gonna do when I’m not your little soldier boy anymore?”

Roy keeps his voice light.  “I will _despair_.  And I may find excuses to request your alchemical consultation.”

The corner of Ed’s lips curls up.  “You’re _evil_.  Okay, question two.”  He looks at the laden desktop.  “You got a cart?”

 

* * *

 

Roy really meant to get some reports signed and sealed tonight, but having Ed sprawled on one’s living room carpet, engrossed in a book of Xingese grammar and chewing intently on a pencil, sets a new standard for distraction.

“This is really hard,” Ed mutters after a while.

“You don’t say.”

Ed’s gaze slants up to meet Roy’s, and his eyebrows rise.  “I can’t get my tongue around it.”

Roy pauses.  “You don’t _say_.”

“Mm.”  Ed taps the end of the wet, shining pencil against his bottom lip.  “I better take a break.  Blow off some steam.”

The pages of the report scatter across the couch cushions, and Roy cannot be moved to care.  Ed settles back on his elbows on the floor, and Roy crawls over him.  “You,” he breathes against Ed’s throat, “don’t _say_.”

Ed’s back arches; their hips meet— “Except I _really_ do.”

 

* * *

 

Ed’s five-month progress report consists only of a dated header and the words _I think I get it now_.  Roy looks up at him, and Ed looks steadily back.

“Can you elaborate?” Roy asks.

“Not on paper,” Ed says.  “This is big stuff.  And until all the people who turned a blind eye to Lab Five are way the fuck out of this military, I’m not about to put _big stuff_ on paper.”

Roy pauses.  “I… see.”

Ed chews on his lip for a moment, and his eyes are intent, and quite despite the distinctly official nature of the occasion, Roy’s trousers are becoming a bit uncomfortable.

“So,” Ed says.  “Explain to me how this unaffiliated contractor shit you keep offhandedly mentioning actually works.”

Roy is still waiting for the day Ed walks in and throws his hands up and says _I’m sick of you—I see you every fucking day, business and pleasure, and it’s too much of your face, Mustang.  One of ’em’s got to go._

Perhaps the time has come to stop tensing in anticipation of the worst.  Perhaps the time has come to gamble on possibility.

“You would still be accountable to me,” Roy says.

“It’s not the being accountable part that’s a problem,” Ed says.  A practiced metal hand draws out the pocket-watch and swings it like a pendulum.  “It’s the chains and the collar.”

“I would need fairly expansive reports on your findings,” Roy says, “but I don’t believe they would have to be filed in such a way that anyone but my team could access them.”

The corner of Ed’s mouth quirks up.  “So what you’re saying is, possibly the most powerful advance in alchemical theory since, y’know, _ever_ is just gonna be our little secret.”

“One of our little secrets,” Roy says.  “Like you, in fa—”

He barely ducks Ed’s watch in time, but the close scrape with a concussion is entirely worth it.

 

* * *

 

Ed develops a tendency to lie on the living room floor and hold the evening’s book above his face.  After a week or two, Roy feels impelled to comment.

“You’re going to ruin your eyes,” he says.

“No’m not,” Ed says immediately.

“You’re blocking your own light, and gravity—”

“Can go fuck itself; been readin’ this way since I was four.”

That’s probably the earliest he was large enough to lift the book.  “Much as I would actually enjoy seeing you in glasses, since I imagine they would magnify your eyes delightfully—”

“Not gettin’ glasses.”

“—they would make for one more object to misplace and sit on every other day.”

At least that gets Ed to look away from the page, even if it is only to glare imperiously.  “I _told_ you, that was the only time I’ve ever lost the damn watch and then found it on a chair.”

“Your memory must be going,” Roy says solemnly.  “You _are_ getting on in years.”

Ed scowls adorably and brings the book even closer to his nose.  “Or maybe,” he says, “it’s just about time to get rid of the thing.”

Roy fingers the top corner of the latest report, and then he relocates to the floor and lies down next to Ed.  This is going to be hell on his back; he doesn’t really understand the appeal.

He clears his throat.  “Are you… eager to leave?”

“The military?” Ed says.  “Hell, yeah.  You assholes have been nothing but trouble since day one.”

“I find that difficult to believe.”

“Fine.  Nothing but trouble and a little bit of sex.”

Roy considers.  “I would call that a lot of sex.”

“ _Roy_.  Okay, whatever; you’ve been nothing but trouble and a _lot_ of sex.”

“I would like that on my headstone, please.”

“Shut up.”

Roy sets the report aside, folds his hands on his chest, and just… looks.  Ed is worth just _looking_ at.  As often as possible, really.

After a moment of pretending, extremely unconvincingly, to keep reading, Ed lowers the book and looks back.

“It’s not that I’m eager to _quit_ ,” he says.  “Or—I mean, yeah, I am, but just because… my obligations as a State Alchemist have all this crap attached, you know?  And a ton of history, and… baggage.  So I want to start fresh, without all the shit this time.”  He looks at the book, rubbing one of his flesh fingertips at the corner of the cover.  “Shit like… fraternization laws.  Y’know.”

“I do know,” Roy says, reaching across to set a hand lightly on Ed’s waist.

Ed chews on his bottom lip and glances over.  “Because—it’s different, y’know, if I’m with the military, and I’m already sort of… _there_ , but—this way it’s obvious that I… chose you.  That I’m gonna keep choosing you.”

Roy raises the hand to brush his cheek.  “Ed…”

Ed picks at the book a bit more avidly.  “It’s just—I’ve always been _yours_ —”

Roy’s heart _teems_ , trembles, overflows.

“—but, like… this is the only way I can be _all_ yours.”

There really aren’t words; Roy shifts to kiss him, and kiss him, and impress the truth against his tongue.

If carpet burns from floor sex have ever been this satisfying, let him be struck down tomorrow; he will die content.

 

* * *

 

Five months later, when they’ve celebrated their freedom several times, in several positions, and Ed’s hair is one giant tangle of sweat and absolute beauty—five months later, Roy nestles in close, holds him tightly, works up the courage, and clears his throat.

“I cannot express my delight at getting to rub your affections into the face of all and sundry in public,” he says, and Ed gives a very sleepy snort of amusement.  “But I’m a strategist, Ed, and—I just want to acknowledge aloud, _now_ , that… this is going to bring with it a whole host of new problems.”

Ed yawns cavernously, smacks his lips, and buries his face in Roy’s chest.  “‘Strategist’ is a real cute word for ‘goddamn worrywart’.”

Roy nudges a knee at his thigh.  What terrible effrontery.  He should really be able to work up some proper offense at this.  “I’m not a worrywart.”

“You are so,” Ed mumbles.  “Okay, so stuff’s not going to be perfect.  Duh.  Perfect doesn’t exist; we both know that.  We’re not going to be perfect, then.  We _are_ going to be so fucking happy that you don’t even recognize yourself.  And that’s all I want.  I want you to be happy.  And you’re gonna be.”  He nuzzles in a little nearer and smiles against Roy’s damp skin.  “Or else.”

And so, for once, Roy shuts up and lets the softest of the flames swell high and roaring and overwhelm his heart.


End file.
